The story of Adam in the Quran, scene by scene
Adam's story scene by scene — the successor, the names, the prostration, the garden and the tree, the disobedience and the words — read in al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, al-Safi and al-Mizan, with where they agree and where they differ.
Adam is named in twenty-five verses across nine surahs — seven in Al-A'raf, five each in Al-Baqarah and Ta-Ha. Seven of those verses address his descendants as "children of Adam", and one tells of "the two sons of Adam". The story itself is spread over Al-Baqarah, Al-A'raf, Al-Hijr, Al-Isra, Al-Kahf, Ta-Ha and Sad. This article follows the scenes in order and, at each hard verse, gives the Sunni reading of al-Tafsir al-Muyassar first, then the Shia readings of al-Safi (al-Fayd al-Kashani) and al-Mizan (al-Tabataba'i).
Quotations from the three commentaries are my renderings of the Arabic.
The successor
And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know."
Al-Muyassar: I will place on the earth a people who succeed one another to build it up. Al-Mizan: the succession is not confined to Adam himself; his children share in it without distinction, and succession — one thing standing in place of another — is only complete when the successor reflects the one succeeded in all his attributes. Al-Safi relays that the angels heard it as a successor in your place, and in another report a successor who will be My proof on My earth over My creation.
So al-Muyassar and al-Mizan agree that the succession belongs to humankind, not to Adam alone. They differ on whom the successor succeeds: one another, for al-Muyassar; God, for al-Mizan; the angels, and a proof of God on earth, in the reports al-Safi carries. The word khalifa occurs only twice in the Quran: here, and of David in Sad 26.
The names
And He taught Adam the names - all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful."
Al-Muyassar: He taught him the names of all things. Al-Safi relays from al-Sadiq, asked what Adam was taught: the lands, the mountains, the ravines and the valleys — and, looking at a rug beneath him, this rug too was among what He taught him. Al-Kashani then adds his own view: teaching the names does not mean teaching words and what they signify — that would be teaching a language, nothing to boast of over the angels — but the realities of created things. Al-Mizan: the knowledge of the names of "these" must disclose their realities, not only what the conventions of language give; the things named are realities that exist, hidden behind the veil of the unseen.
The prostration
And [mention] when We said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.
Al-Muyassar: prostrate before Adam to honour him and show his merit. Al-Mizan: the verse shows that prostration to other than God is permitted in principle when it is a greeting and an honour, and in it is submission to God by obeying His command. Al-Safi adds a reason by report: because of the lights of our Prophet and his family that were in his loins, so the prostration was honour to them, worship to God, and obedience to Adam.
All three agree it was a prostration of honour, not worship. And all three follow Al-Kahf 50 on what Iblis was:
And [mention] when We said to the angels, "Prostrate to Adam," and they prostrated, except for Iblees. He was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord. Then will you take him and his descendants as allies other than Me while they are enemies to you? Wretched it is for the wrongdoers as an exchange.
The garden and the tree
And We said, "O Adam, dwell, you and your wife, in Paradise and eat therefrom in [ease and] abundance from wherever you will. But do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers."
Al-Muyassar calls it Paradise without saying which. Al-Safi relays from al-Sadiq that it was one of the gardens of this world, where the sun and moon rise; had it been the Garden of Eternity, he would never have left it. Al-Mizan: it was not the Garden of Eternity, which Satan could not enter; the proof is that they all left it. So al-Safi and al-Mizan agree, and both argue from the leaving.
"Adam disobeyed his Lord and erred"
And Adam and his wife ate of it, and their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten over themselves from the leaves of Paradise. And Adam disobeyed his Lord and erred.
Then his Lord chose him and turned to him in forgiveness and guided [him].
Al-Muyassar: Adam went against his Lord's command and erred by eating from the tree. Al-Safi: he erred — he missed what he sought, and failed, since he sought eternity by eating it. Al-Mizan: it was disobedience of a command of guidance, not of obligation; the prophets are protected from disobedience in anything that comes back to the religion revealed to them, and of "do not approach this tree": a prohibition of counsel, guiding him to his own good, not a binding one.
All three agree he went against the command and that God then chose him, turned to him and guided him. They differ on the kind of command: al-Muyassar speaks of it as disobedience, al-Mizan as counsel rather than law, and al-Safi reads the error as missing what he had sought.
The words
Then Adam received from his Lord [some] words, and He accepted his repentance. Indeed, it is He who is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful.
Al-Muyassar names the words as Al-A'raf 23:
They said, "Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."
Al-Safi relays from al-Kafi a longer form in the same vein — "There is no god but You, glory be to You, O God, and praise; I have done wrong and wronged myself, so forgive me" — then a report adding "by the right of Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah, al-Hasan and al-Husayn." Al-Mizan allows the Al-A'raf words as a possibility, then notes that in Al-A'raf they come before the command to go down while in Al-Baqarah the receiving comes after it, and suggests: among the names God taught Adam was something that helps the disobedient when he disobeys; perhaps what he received from his Lord was connected with those names.
What the verses do not say
- They do not name the tree or locate the garden.
- They do not name Adam's wife; "Hawwa" comes from the commentaries.
- They do not say Iblis was an angel; Al-Kahf says he was of the jinn.
- Al-Baqarah does not give the words Adam received.
Counted on the mushaf
- Adam's name: twenty-five verses in nine surahs; seven in Al-A'raf, five each in Al-Baqarah and Ta-Ha.
- "Children of Adam": seven verses, five of them in Al-A'raf.
- Iblis: eleven verses in nine surahs.
- khalifa: twice — Adam and David.
Sources
- al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran.
- Tafsir al-Safi — al-Fayd al-Kashani.
- al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Quran — al-Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Tabataba'i.
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