12
Of everything We created a pair
وَمِن كُلِّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَا زَوْجَيْنِ
51:49
وَمِن كُلِّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَا زَوْجَيْنِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ
And of all things We created two mates, that you might remember.
36:36
سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ الْأَزْوَاجَ كُلَّهَا مِمَّا تُنبِتُ الْأَرْضُ وَمِنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَمِمَّا لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
Exalted is He who created all pairs — from what the earth grows, and from themselves, and from that which they do not know.
The ayah in tafsir
Zawj is a mate, a counterpart, not only male and female. Al-Razi includes opposites: night and day, sweet and bitter, earth and sky. 36:36 adds “what they do not know” — pairs not yet in the listener’s inventory. The aim is tadhkir: so you remember the One who has no pair.
What later eyes saw
Flowering plants have complements. Animals are sexed in ways the Arabs already named. Later physics added charge and anti-charge, particle and counterpart. The Quran already left a door: pairs you do not yet know. That door should stay a door, not a claim that every boson is in the mushaf.
Where we stop
Allah is One, without a zawj. Creation is paired. Do not drag particle physics into iman as if kufr were a wrong equation.