Overall meaning : A very long period of time indeed had passed before man was created, during which time he was non-existent—even nothing yet to be thought of! We have created every human being from a drop of the man’s and the woman’s mingled fluids in order to test him; therefore, We have endowed him with hearing and sight. We have surely shown him the path of truth that is bound to lead him to Allah’s good pleasure and Paradise, and it rests with him to either follow it and be grateful or abandon it and be ungrateful to Allah’s favours upon him.