The
singular event of the creation of Adam, the first human being, has been
repeatedly described in the Holy Qur’an, possibly to emphasize its importance
and to ensure it attracts the attention of the reader. As a matter of fact it does
open new channel of thought in the mind each time one reads it. Here is a
second view of the verses already discussed in the previous article. Verse 30
of Chapter 2, the Cow is translated into English as follows:
And when
thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth,
they said: wilt Thou place therein one who will do harm therein and will shed
blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise and sanctify Thee? He said: Surely I know
that which ye don’t know.
On
reading the above verse one thing immediately becomes clear: mankind was
created with the explicit purpose of populating the earth and the notion that
the human race is a continuation of the punishment given to Adam and Eve for
being disobedient is not correct. Man and woman came into being on earth as
God’s viceroys or deputies with the task of continuing God’s work and the
dignity of all men and women must be respected in spite of differences. As to
the scope of God’s work to be carried out by men and women there can be
infinite speculation – but everyone would agree that it must include the
protection, nurturing, development and facilitation of the existence of all
living beings and life forms. The Creator would certainly like his viceroys to
be creative in some way or the other.
The
second point that stands out is that almighty God worked with complete
transparency, taking His angels into confidence about His intentions and
granted His angels the right to question His decisions. Apparently God had a
sort of a parliament. When the angels objected that mankind would quarrel and
cause bloodshed on earth, The Almighty did not punish them, nor imprisoned
them, nor destroyed and replaced them with more obliging ones. Instead, God
chose to convince them of the wisdom of his decision by a practical
demonstration. Convincing, rather than punishing opposition is God’s way of
doing things and obviously His favorite way of doing things for man.
The
narration is continued in the same style in verses 2:31 to 2:33 translated as
follows:
2:31 And
He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to angels, saying: Inform me the names of these if ye are
truthful.
2:32
They said: Be glorified! We have no knowledge saving that which thou hast
taught us. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower, the Wise.
2:33 He
said: O Adam! Inform them of their names, and when he had informed them of
their names, He said: Did I not tell you that I know the secrets of the heavens
and the earth And I know what ye disclose and which ye hide.
To the
naïve reader it would appear that God tricked the angels by conniving with Adam
who was his favorite and teaching him the names of objects that the angels were
not familiar with. But for the keen seeker of the truth, this was not Divine
politics. It was the revelation of the human faculty of giving names that would
make human beings superior to all other creatures. The ability to give names to
objects, actions, feelings and ideas has enabled mankind to develop languages,
arts, sciences, laws and civilization as a whole. Animals created before man
had limited power of speech. Parrots could repeat what they heard, but could
not give names to what they saw and so remained unable to talk to each other.
But a human child, as soon as it can control its voice starts giving names to
things it sees. In many families the infants introduce new names for objects
and people that become adopted. If the speech processing part is removed from
the human brain, what remains is pretty much the same as an ape’s brain.
The story of Adam’s creation is continued in
chapter 15 (Al-Hijr) verses 26 to 43
translated as follows:
15:26 And certainly We created man of clay that
gives forth sound, of black mud fashioned in shape.
15:27 And the jinn We created before, of
intensely hot fire.
15:28 And when your Lord said to the angels:
Surely I am going to create a mortal of the essence of black mud fashioned in
shape.
15:29 So when I have made him complete and
breathed into him of My spirit, fall down making obeisance to him.
15:30 So the angels made obeisance, all of them
together,
15:31 But Iblis (did it not); he refused to be
with those who made obeisance.
15:32 He said: O Iblis! what excuse have you
that you are not with those who make obeisance?
15:33 He said: I am not such that I should make
obeisance to a mortal whom Thou hast created of the essence of black mud
fashioned in shape.
15:34 He said: Then get out of it, for surely
you are driven away:
15:35 And surely on you is curse until the day
of judgment.
15:36 He said: My Lord! then respite me till the
time when they are raised.
15:37 He said: So surely you are of the
respited ones
15:38 Till the period of the time made known.
15:39 He said: My Lord! because Thou hast made
life evil to me, I will certainly make (evil) fairseeming to them on earth, and
I will certainly cause them all to deviate
15:40 Except Thy servants from among them, the
devoted ones.
15.: He said: This is a right way with Me:
15:42 Surely. as regards My servants, you have
no authority ,over them except those who follow you of the deviators.
15:43
And surely Hell is the promised place of them all:
Here is
another classic example of God’s tolerance of dissent. Iblis (the devil) flatly refused to obey a direct order from the
Almighty God. The expression, “What aileth thee…” shows that God’s initial
reaction was concern for the well-being of his dissenting creature rather than
anger at the dissent.
Verse
15:27 could mean that Iblis (Satan) a jinn
is an intelligent life form which came into existence while the Earth was still
a cloud of very hot gases; probably as a consequence of the imaginary
components of the complex equation of life. Even in terms of established modern
physics it does not seem impossible that out of a large mass of plasma there
could emerge stable configurations of fundamental subatomic particles
containing logic circuits and sensing and transmission capabilities of
magnitude sufficient to create enough excitation of a few cells of the human
brain to initiate an idea. In a healthy and sound brain, the old devil or jinn
seems unlikely to produce any more disturbances than a temporary distraction.
Moreover, in nearly five billion years since the separation of the Earth from
the Sun, it is likely that most of them have become extinct; and one should not
expect continuous production of Jinns from a considerably cooled down Sun
although there might be some coming from distant stars in all directions.
The
question as to whether or not there exists an intelligent and resourceful enemy
bent on destroying mankind can be answered by studying the history of medicine.
Just as in a war situation, the combatants try to develop countermeasures and
disrupt the defense supplies of the enemy; when mankind developed vaccines
utilizing the immune system and it seemed that all epidemics had been brought
under control, AIDS surfaced which attacks and immobilizes the immune system
itself. Anyway, we find that at that juncture in prehistory there was an
agreement between God and Iblis (Satan) that whereas man was created to follow
the righteous path, the Satan would be free to divert him and lead him astray.
God would not interfere in this process and it is up to man alone to recognize
if he is being led astray and to fight the evil thoughts and stay on course.
This makes sense because if man is superior to Satan then there is no reason
why he should get any help when he is losing his struggle against an inferior
adversary. One should expect that God would be quite chagrined if man, the best
of His creatures betrayed His trust by losing the battle against Satan by
allowing himself to be led to counterproductive thoughts, thus causing an
insult to God. As to what happens to those who accept Satan's leadership there
is a clear statement in chapter 16 verse 63:
"By
God, we sent apostles to many a people before you, but Satan made their acts
seem attractive to them, and he is their friend this day, and a painful torment
is their destiny."
It may
be worthwhile, here, dwelling a little upon the intent of angels and the Satan
being asked to bow down before the first man. Obviously, God would not have
wished to make man the object of worship for other forms of life, as He has
reserved this privilege for Himself alone. He would also not have wanted to
make them subservient to human will for the same reason. The only valid
explanation that remains is that God wanted the angels and the Satan to accept
man's sovereignty over the physical universe, the role of other agencies being
relegated to one of assisting him in the execution of the assigned objectives for
which man was created. This thought is further strengthened by the statement in
chapter 2, verse 30 which says that man is God's viceroy on earth.
The
question now is, “How does man exercise his sovereignty on the universe or at
least earth?”
The
examples of man’s benevolent authority on earth can be seen in the
domestication of animals, dams that change the courses or control the flow of
rivers, artificial rains by cloud seeding, harnessing of wind and solar energy
for power generation, mining of solid and liquid resources such as metal and
oil, space travel etc. It seems that
most peaceful engineering endeavors amount to the execution of God’s will and
achieving the object of our creation.
(Extract
from “What and why I Believe by Mohammad Nasim alias Naseem Mahnavi.)
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