Why Is Water Essential to Life?

What does “We made from water every living thing” mean?

“Have those who disbelieved not seen that the heavens and the earth were joined together, and We split them apart, and We made from water every living thing? Will they not then believe?” Al-Anbiyaʾ: 30.

Al-Tabari favored the opening of the sky with rain and the earth with vegetation as the meaning of ratq and fatq, citing the mention of water afterward. He did not discard the other views: he recorded the joining of sky and earth, and their separation into heavens and earths, then explicitly explained his preference for the context followed by water. For We made from water, he explained bringing to life through water descending from the sky, and transmitted a view that living things were created from it. Al-Qurtubi recorded readings including creation from water, sustaining life through it, and reproductive fluid. There is a distinction between the cause of an existing thing remaining alive and the origin of a living thing’s formation: exegetical language allows different readings, and none should be turned into a definitive report about the chemical pathway by which the first organism arose.

Al-Tabari explains a question readers may overlook: how do crops and trees fall under every living thing? He answers that they have life and death, even if, in his terminology, their life differs from that of beings with souls. Every did not mean humans and animals alone to him, nor does it include a stone merely because it falls into water. He concludes the verse with Will they not then believe?: considering the bringing of life is an argument for the doer’s divinity and power, rather than an exercise in understanding molecular structure.

The same pages of the book include another verse: “And God created every moving creature from water,” al-Nur: 45. Al-Tabari interpreted from water here as reproductive fluid, while al-Qurtubi mentioned this reading and a broader one involving water’s presence in an animal’s creation. As al-Qurtubi explains, dabbah in the verse means an animal that moves; we should not project onto it everything covered by living thing in al-Anbiyaʾ. The phrase is followed by the differences between creatures moving on their bellies, on two legs or on four, then “God creates what He wills; God has power over all things.” The context is creation, diversity and reflection. Using the two verses to explain modern cellular chemistry therefore requires us to state that this is a later study of the phenomenon, rather than an exclusive meaning on which commentators unanimously agreed.

The verse does not describe the H–O–H angle or the hydrogen bond. It establishes water’s relation to creation and life and invites observation and belief. Science can investigate a different question: how do water’s properties enable the functions of life we know?

Before the microscope, people saw rain’s and thirst’s effects, and commentators read the verse within that horizon. Chemistry and molecular biology revealed layers of mechanisms unknown to them. This enriches reflection without turning Quranic wording into an experimental report specifying how the first cell began. On p. 125, the book uses preparation and measured ordering to reflect on the verb We made: a faith-based reading of creation’s meaning, rather than a linguistic derivation that independently proves a chemical theory.

Why is H₂O different from merely bringing hydrogen and oxygen together?

Water consists of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, but bonding electrons are distributed unevenly: oxygen attracts electrons more strongly, so its side carries a partial negative charge and the hydrogen sides carry partial positive charges. Because the molecule bends at an angle of about 104.5 degrees, the charge directions do not cancel each other, and water remains polar.

This polarity allows water molecules to form a moving network of hydrogen bonds that continually break and form. A review in Chemical Reviews examines how water’s properties relate to its structure, energies and intermolecular interactions. The formula H₂O alone is therefore not enough to predict liquid water’s behavior.

Connected properties emerge: dissolving many ions and polar molecules, relatively high heat capacity, high heat of evaporation, cohesion, and floating ice because it is less dense than liquid water. When freezing, molecules tend to form a more open arrangement, so the same amount of water occupies more volume in its ordinary icy state. These are connected consequences of molecular structure and its bond network, rather than separate properties to which we attach individual supernatural explanations.

What does water do inside a cell?

1. It allows life’s chemistry to move

A cell needs ions and molecules to move and substances to meet enzymes. Water surrounds many ions and polar molecules in hydration shells, providing a medium for motion and reaction. On p. 126, the book uses table salt as an example: when it separates into a positive sodium ion and a negative chloride ion in water, oxygen’s partly negative side faces the former and hydrogen’s partly positive side faces the latter. This is a concrete example of hydration, rather than merely saying that water dissolves salts.

Within the body, sodium, potassium, calcium and chloride ions move in aqueous environments, and differences in their concentrations across membranes contribute to nerve signaling, muscle contraction and many other functions. A nerve signal, for example, is a change in a cell membrane’s potential, rather than current passing through a metal wire. The opening and closing of ion channels control charge movement, then pumps restore the distribution. Ions alone are not enough: a cell needs pumps, channels and energy to maintain their differences. On p. 126, the book therefore connects the water medium with the brain’s operation discussed earlier, rather than isolating each component in a list of properties.

The precise description is that water is an excellent solvent for many ionic and polar substances, rather than for everything. These limits are not a deficiency: they are part of what makes a cell membrane possible.

2. Because it does not easily dissolve fats, the cell can draw its boundaries

Life is not scattered reactions; it needs an inside and an outside. Cell membranes consist mainly of phospholipids with water-interacting heads and nonpolar tails. In an aqueous environment these molecules arrange in a bilayer, with heads facing the water and tails gathering inward, away from it. A dynamic barrier thus emerges, carrying channels, transporters and receptors. Specialist cellular references explain this assembly of lipid molecules in water. A lipid barrier can limit the leakage of many ions, but a cell also needs proteins determining what crosses and when, and energy sources maintaining differences across the membrane. Forming a lipid layer alone does not make a living cell or explain the first cell’s origin.

Describing tails as hydrophobic does not mean that they feel or flee. The term refers to a physical effect causing nonpolar surfaces to gather in a way that reduces their exposure to water. This is one of the book’s central ideas: water’s benefit lies in what it does not dissolve as well as what it dissolves.

3. It contributes to protein shaping

A protein is an amino-acid chain, but its function depends on a three-dimensional shape. The aqueous environment affects the folding of many soluble proteins: hydrophilic groups tend to face the water, while nonpolar groups tend to gather away from it. This is an approximate description of soluble proteins, rather than a spatial rule applying identically to a protein embedded in a lipid membrane. Bonds within the chain, ions, temperature and molecular chaperones also contribute. A biochemical review examines hydration water’s role in protein structure and movement. Water is part of the operating environment, rather than a folding machine working alone.

4. It provides the operating environment for DNA, RNA and energy

DNA carries genetic information, but does not operate as a book separate from the cell. Its negatively charged phosphate backbone interacts with water and ions, while proteins, enzymes, and transcription and repair mechanisms work around it. Specific genes are then read, RNA is produced, ribosomes build proteins, and energy molecules are consumed. DNA in water is not equivalent to a cell: information needs a system that reads and regulates it.

On pp. 128–129, the book moves from carrying information to the cost of operating it: transcribing genes, making proteins, transporting substances and repairing the cell require energy. ATP is one molecule used in energy transfer; its hydrolysis by water can be coupled to processes such as transport across some membranes. Useful energy is not explained simply by breaking a high-energy bond, but by accounting for reactants, products and reaction coupling. In a mechanistic study of one membrane transporter, a water molecule participates in hydrolysis, while ATP binding and structural changes also determine the transporter’s movement cycle. This is a specific example, rather than a uniform description of every molecular machine.

The book then gives the example of mitochondria in eukaryotic cells. A chain of proteins in their inner membrane transfers electrons and uses the available energy to pump protons to one side of the membrane. An electrochemical difference forms: a charge difference as well as a difference in proton numbers. When protons return through ATP synthase, that difference can be used to attach phosphate to ADP and form ATP. Cellular references explain this coupling of electron transfer, proton differences and ATP production. Notice the whole pathway’s interconnectedness: an aqueous medium carrying ions, a membrane limiting their passage, proteins controlling their direction, and an energy source keeping movement far from equilibrium. Water alone does none of these jobs independently of the others.

5. It moderates temperature fluctuations

The hydrogen-bond network gives water relatively high specific heat and heat of evaporation. Its temperature therefore changes relatively slowly when energy is gained or lost, while evaporating sweat consumes energy from the skin’s surface. In cold freshwater lakes, ice floats above liquid water, and its layer can limit heat loss from the water below. This alone does not guarantee every aquatic organism’s survival, but radically changes winter conditions compared with ice sinking. On p. 125, the book thus connects a molecular property with an effect observable at the scale of the body and environment.

Does water alone create life? No

Putting water, salts, fats, proteins and DNA into a tube does not automatically produce a living cell. Life is a regulated system of matter, energy and information, rather than a component list. A cell needs a boundary preserving its interior, metabolism that builds and breaks down, usable energy, information that is read and regulated, maintenance, response, balance, and the ability to continue and reproduce.

If the flow of substances and energy to a cell stops and it can no longer repair damage or regulate its internal environment, water, nucleic acid and protein may remain, but their presence does not restore life. This is the distinction the book insists on: we neither seek a magical substance behind cellular components nor regard their assembly as a sufficient explanation of their operation. We describe an existing living system and recognize that this description alone does not settle its earliest story.

Astrobiology therefore uses water as an important sign when assessing an environment’s habitability, but also seeks suitable chemistry, an energy source and conditions for persistence. NASA presents these ingredients together when considering the moon Europa’s habitability. Finding water on another world is information about its environment; even when the ingredients of habitability exist, proving that organisms are present remains a separate question needing independent evidence.

How did the first life begin, and is water enough to explain it?

We should distinguish existing life, whose cells we see depending on water, from the first emergence of life, whose conditions we try to reconstruct from incomplete traces, experiments and models. We can study spontaneous lipid-vesicle formation in water or the synthesis of organic molecules under specified conditions. Demonstrating that a chemical step is possible, however, does not mean that the whole historical chain occurred in that sequence, or that a vesicle or replicating molecule equals a modern cell.

Origin-of-life research asks how a boundary, ways to capture energy, a self-maintaining reaction network and a mechanism for information and heredity came together. Water enabling dissolution and reactions can also contribute to the breakdown of some bonds we need to form in larger molecules. Adding water is therefore not an automatic solution to every step. Experiments, for example, study wet–dry cycling’s effects on forming chains from nucleic-acid monomers; an experiment published in PNAS demonstrated chain formation under particular laboratory conditions. This supports a possible chemical pathway, rather than showing that the first life actually followed it.

Hypotheses differ about the environment and earliest steps, including ponds with changing moisture and hydrothermal environments; NASA presents these settings as research subjects. The verse in al-Anbiyaʾ does not specify the first organism’s location or date, or name a particular hereditary molecule. Even with experimental progress, there is no single historical account established in detail for life’s first emergence on Earth. The Quranic statement connecting water and life is broader than a specific laboratory hypothesis, and scientific investigation of mechanisms remains open to revision.

This precision serves the book’s question: reflecting on matter’s capacity for life does not require claiming that chemistry has closed the question of the beginning, or stopping inquiry at the limits of our ignorance. It distinguishes what we observe in cells today, what we consider likely about the distant past, and what we reflect on in the text.

Is there life without water, and what about tardigrades?

All known life on Earth depends on liquid water during part of its cycle. Some organisms, including species of tardigrades, worms and brine shrimp, resist drying by entering anhydrobiotic dormancy, in which metabolic activity drops extremely low and mechanisms protect membranes, proteins and genetic material. Activity returns after water is restored. A review of these mechanisms details similarities and differences among the organisms, so one mechanism should not be generalized to all of them.

The ability to survive drying for a time therefore does not equal active life independent of water. Whether extraterrestrial life could use another solvent is an open scientific question, rather than an established observation. The faithful statement is that all life we know depends on water; anything beyond that is an unproven possibility.

Did people know the connection between water and life before modern science?

Yes. People long knew that rain revives the land and thirst kills; the first audience could therefore reflect on the verse. Its argument does not depend on claiming that nobody knew any connection between water and life before the microscope.

The verse places water at the heart of creation and the bringing of life, inviting observation. Modern science opens new layers of questions: how do polarity, hydration, membranes, protein folding and nucleic acids contribute to making life possible? This inquiry adds understanding of the ways organisms depend on water, while protecting the verse’s meaning from being bound to information that may change or an unsettled historical model.

What does Qul Siru fi al-Ard add?

On pp. 123–130, the book constructs a path readers can follow step by step: molecular shape and polarity, ion hydration, hydrogen bonds’ effects on heat and ice, water’s limits in dissolving fats, the membrane, then proteins, DNA and energy transfer, ending with the question of the cell as a system. The table-salt, nerve-signal and proton-difference examples therefore appear in this article where each serves the argument, rather than to multiply terminology.

In discussing protein folding, the book invokes “The making of God, who perfected everything,” al-Naml: 88. Al-Tabari explains perfected as made firm and well ordered; the verse’s context concerns the mountains’ movement and what accompanies the day the trumpet is blown. Invoking the perfection of God’s creation while reflecting on a cell is an understandable expression of faith, but the verse’s context does not make it a direct description of protein folding. Distinguishing reflection inspired by the general meaning from detailed exegesis prevents the text from being made to carry something it does not contain.

The idea is complete when we see that water is an internal condition for known life, that both its solvent ability and its limits matter, and that living operation requires organized matter, information and energy. The article then strengthens the book’s question rather than reducing it to a slogan. Continue with the chapter through the book page, consult the Quran-and-science reading method to distinguish text, exegesis, observation and inference, then embryonic stages to continue the context of chapter four.

Frequently asked questions

Why is water necessary for living organisms?

It provides a medium for reactions and the transport of many ions and molecules, and contributes to temperature regulation, membrane formation, protein folding and nucleic acids’ operating environment. It is necessary for known life, but insufficient to create it alone.

How is “We made from water every living thing” interpreted?

Commentators mentioned creation from water, sustaining life through it, reviving vegetation with rain and reproductive fluid. The verse establishes water’s central place in creation and life; it need not explain modern chemistry in detail.

Is water a universal solvent?

No. Water dissolves many ions and polar molecules, but does not easily dissolve nonpolar substances such as fats. This property helps phospholipids build cell membranes.

Does the presence of water mean that life is present?

No. Water makes an environment an important target in the search for known life, but does not establish its presence: suitable chemistry, energy and organization capable of persisting are also needed.

Can tardigrades live without water?

They can survive drying in a dormant state with severely reduced metabolism, then resume activity when water returns. This does not represent active life independent of water.

Does the verse say that life definitely began in the sea?

The verse in al-Anbiyaʾ does not specify the first life’s location or the mechanism of its emergence. Water is present in known life, but identifying the earliest environment is a matter of scientific research that the verse’s wording alone does not establish.

Sources and references

1. The Quran, al-Anbiyaʾ: 30; al-Nur: 45; al-Naml: 88. The verses’ wording and context.
2. Al-Tabari, Jamiʿ al-Bayan, commentary on al-Anbiyaʾ: 30; al-Nur: 45; al-Naml: 88. Favoring rain and vegetation in ratq and fatq, interpreting water as reproductive fluid, and explaining perfection.
3. Al-Qurtubi, al-Jamiʿ li-Ahkam al-Quran, commentary on al-Anbiyaʾ: 30; al-Nur: 45. Readings of water’s meaning in the two verses.
4. Ahmed Alhafiz, «قل سيروا في الأرض فانظروا كيف بدأ الخلق», chapter four, Water and the Beginning of Hidden Life, pp. 123–130. The reference for constructing the question and the article’s argument sequence.
5. Brini E, et al., “How Water’s Properties Are Encoded in Its Molecular Structure and Energies,” Chemical Reviews, 2017. Water’s structure and network of interactions.
6. Privalov PL, Crane-Robinson C, “Role of Water in the Formation of Macromolecular Structures,” European Biophysics Journal, 2017. Water and biological macromolecules.
7. Bellissent-Funel M-C, et al., “Water Determines the Structure and Dynamics of Proteins,” Chemical Reviews, 2016. Hydration, protein structure and movement.
8. Alberts B, et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell: “The Lipid Bilayer,” NCBI Bookshelf. Phospholipids and membranes.
9. Prieß M, et al., “Molecular Mechanism of ATP Hydrolysis in an ABC Transporter,” ACS Central Science, 2018. Water and hydrolysis in a specific membrane-transporter example.
10. Alberts B, et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell: “Energy Conversion: Mitochondria and Chloroplasts,” NCBI Bookshelf. The electron-transfer chain, proton difference and ATP synthase.
11. NASA Science, “Why Is Water So Important for Life as We Know It?” Water in known life.
12. NASA Europa Clipper, “Ingredients for Life”. Water, chemistry and energy in the search for habitability.
13. NASA Science, “How Did Life First Emerge on Earth?”. Environments and hypotheses in origin-of-life research.
14. Song X, Simonis P, Deamer D, Zare RN, “Wet–dry cycles cause nucleic acid monomers to polymerize into long chains,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024. An experiment involving wet–dry cycling and the formation of chains from nucleic-acid monomers.
15. Hibshman JD, Clegg JS, Goldstein B, “Mechanisms of Desiccation Tolerance: Themes and Variations in Brine Shrimp, Roundworms, and Tardigrades,” Frontiers in Physiology, 2020. Desiccation-resistance mechanisms in different groups.

From the drop to the living system

Chapter four of the book presents the full argument on pp. 123–130: water is an internal condition for life, but a cell cannot be reduced to water or a list of components.

Book page — forthcoming