No Eve?
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Who disobeyed God ( the apple one) then? a guy called Adam or the whole group of the humanity present then?
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Peace,
My understanding is that humanity split into factions and fought over resources whilst all creatures have their rizq. I understand this as an allegorical description. I could be wrong and open to better explanations. No where in the quran there is a prophet adam.
An interesting view on this comes from Ahmed Shabbir in his QXL an exposition of Quran. He is extremely poor in referencing hence wouldn't take his view as correct, since its very difficult to verify his thinking.
The apple and story of adam and eve is strongly christian and perhaps it came into islam with the jewish and christian converts.
Peace
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235 We said "O Adam! dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden; and eat of the bountiful things therein as (where and when) ye will; but approach not this tree, or ye run into harm and transgression."
236 Then did Satan make them slip from the (garden), and get them out of the state (of felicity) in which they had been. We said "Get ye down, all (ye people), with enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling-place and your means of livelihood - for a time."
719 "O Adam! dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and enjoy (its good things) as ye wish but approach not this tree, or ye run into harm and transgression."
720 Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before) he said "Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever."
722 So by deceit he brought about their fall when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them "Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?"if Adam is not one human being, how does one explain these verses where Adam disobeyed God by eating from a forbidden tree?
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SaLaM PM
Are you interested in science? (not a irrelevant question but making sure if you are interested or not before i post to your question)
Well Jaxal, what exactly do u mean? evolution stuff?
I am interested in anything factual and sensible.Well,since we are considering Quran here, I am honestly not sure what interpretations can be made of those verses if Adam wasnt one being?
I am not against the idea or anything, but just wanna understand the logic. -
SaLaM PM
First off, i too believe that Adam was 1 peson. Male. But not long ago i started a thrad called "How was adam sent down to earth". Have a look over it if you want to. Basically, i wanted to know how Adam was sent to earth. And truth is, we are not sure. We know Adam wasnt ON earth. He was sent DOWN. I mean, All God has to say is 'Be' and it is done. But did that really what happened? This is what i think. Scientists beleive that it was a meteor carrying carbon (one of the very important element in our body chemistery) that hit earth and started the process of life. I think, somehow someway (not sure) but that meteor was carrying.. maybe the essence of Adam... and came down to earth. Started life. unicellular, multicellular, fishes, reptiles, mamals and then us humans.
What do you think?
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Peace be upon you all,
I take "adam" as a personification of the human intellect, which can "beget" right or wrong beliefs (Adams two sons).
So "adam" , the intellect of man, must submit to the WORD of the God, which is consistent, unlike mans intellect as the world verfies.
(237) So Adam received from his Lord words, so (He) forgave on him, that He is, He is the forgiver , the most merciful.
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Hi Jaxal and all,
I always understood those verses to mean Adam as a single person. So the eating from the forbidden tree made sense.
Now in this forum, I realise that there are different interpretations of some of the arabic verses coz some of the arabic words have many meanings/sense.
And also, I think, the message given to the people all those yrs ago, could only have been understood by them to the best of their knowledge. The same message can be interpreted better with more sense now. As I understand, Quran contains some verses with plain irrefutable facts and some verses with an indirect, deeper meaning/sense to it.So, I am open to sensible interpretations of such verses.
So, if according to thisAs for Adam, the root is "alif", "dal" , "meem" which means literally, the 'skin of the earth'.
Hence the word Adam doesnt necessarily indicate one single human being ( unless you're willing to accept that 6 billion people came from a single couple ).How would one explain those verses where Adam is forbidden to eat from the specific tree etc?
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Peace be upon you,
Adam representing the intellect can be understood the no matter what time period we are dealing with.
Regarding the tree, take a look at the other verses about a good tree with good fruit and bad tree with bad fruit. Basically, we want to nourish ourselves with what is correct, not what is falsehood and misguiding.
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There are very interesting views here. I think most of the Qur'an is still to be understood. Adam could might as well be the first human capable of reasoning (if you believe in the evolution theory).
Anyway, God is Most Wise and knows that which we do not know.
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Check out 711
Adam means Humanity. Who ate from the tree? We all did. Was it a real tree? I don't think so because the word shajarat can also mean 'bad company' following the synonym patterns for Arabic forms, looking at Shaajir (singular) and shajarat as plural, like saahir(singularwizard) and its plural saharat(plural). So we joined bad company in our former life.
As for how we came to earth. I kind of follow the Egyptian parallels and some of my own. Obviously what we lived there was on a higher level, so I would say that earthly life is a down-step. But also the Egyptian parallel has to do with the physical word vibrating on a lower vibration than the spiritual. So our souls(which still vibrate high) have been brought into a world of lower vibration to live this life as a test if we will again disobey God letting grandiose ideas and beliefs pull us away from God, Almighty.
Godbless,
ProGod -
i agree with progod and pazuzu. I think "Adam" might've been the first species of primates that could actually be considered "human" or had the ability to learn and think.
And as for Jaxal's query, i dont know for sure(actually im far from sure because i dont know the exact ayahs your referring to). But does it have to be one single human. Could it be that life itself was sent down to earth by God. Something like an asteroid hitting earth that would have caused the beginning of life on earth. ? -
Peace All,
I pulled this from another thread as it pertains to the topic...
230..."They exclaimed, ?Will you place on it such creation as will cause disorder therein and shed blood! - Whereas we strive to establish Your Glory in the Universe and make manifest that You are Impeccable!? He answered, ?Behold, I know that which you know not.?
How would the malaika draw the conclusion that man would cause disorder and shed blood, if man did not already exist in a more primitive form, causing disorder and shedding blood? I surmise that "Behold, I know that which you know not" refers to the fact that primitive man was endowed with a soul, a conscience, free-will, the ability to transcend the primitive animal behavior. The malaika did not understand this possibility, but Allah knows best.
Peace,
Tay -
Peace be upon you,
Oneness should be our focus. The Whole (Holy).
So when the intellect works WHOLEISTICALLY we prosper (Garden)
When we DEFINE something, which is to limit something to show how it is apart from another thing, we lose that Oneness, so instead of the "garden", the focus limits to the "tree" within the Garden.
Adam(intellect) was taught the names/descriptions of all things, do you se the connection? It was not Adam being taught the definitions that helps "him", but the following of the God's Word when it descends.
It is the intellect(male) that forms the mental picture(female-eve). It isnt until we have a clear picture formed that we can get MOTIVated (e-MOTION) to achieve the goal.
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Peace be upon you Jaxal,
I am willing to discuss this anywhere, create the thread and lets start the discussion
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If one reads 711 one will see that the passage says It is We Who created you all and gave you all shape; then We bade the angels bow down to Adam, and they bowed down; not so Iblis; He refused to be of those who bow down.
Walaqad khalaqnakum thumma sawwarnakum thumma qulna lilmalaikati osjudoo liadama fasajadoo illa ibleesa lam yakun mina assajideen
Every where it says 'you all' that is 'kum' which means 'you all.' The Koran is addressing humanity and hen says 'then we bade the angels to bow down to Adam.'
It think it is obvious from the verse that humanity is Adam.
As for
230..."They exclaimed, ?Will you place on it such creation as will cause disorder therein and shed blood! - Whereas we strive to establish Your Glory in the Universe and make manifest that You are Impeccable!? He answered, ?Behold, I know that which you know not.?
If you look a few of the old dictionaries (Lane's lexicon has it) you can see that 'khaleef' can also mean someone who is corrupted and khaleefat someone who is really corrupted. The verse before this says that God will put a 'khaleefat' on the earth.
"Behold, thy Lord said to the angels "I will create a vicegerent on earth."
Waith qala rabbuka lilmalaikati innee jaAAilun fee alardi khaleefatan qalookhaleefah can mean vicegerent but it can also mean 'truly corrupt one.' It sure makes us humans feel good to think that we are God's vicegerent and it goes along with the Jewish idea that we were made in God's image, but it is true. I think the response of the Angels makes it clear which meaning was meant by khaleefat.
It also goes along with the Christian idea of original sin, and in that sense it is true. We are all corrupt because of what we did in the past but as we all should now it is not about what you did but what you do. And that is why we are here. That passage that says 'Words reached adam from his lord" 237 should be more appropriately read differently.
Fatalaqqa adamu min rabbihi kalimatin fataba AAalayhi innahu huwa attawwabu arraheem
"So Adam will recieve words from his Lord. Would he turn favorably to them, surely God is the one to turn in favor of anyone, the merciful."
That is for all of us and for all Humanity. God will reach everyone, if we turn to his words, he will turn to us. Be it the Koran or through any other of his signs, words or masterpieces.
Godbless,
Anwar -
Peace Anwar,
Great post.
I do have a question though. You mentioned
It also goes along with the Christian idea of original sin, and in that sense it is true. We are all corrupt because of what we did in the past...
What exactly did we do in the past and how did that make us corrupt?
I've heard this menioned here a few times but have never heard an explanation.Peace,
Tay -
We partook in bad company that God told us not to. If the angels were already complaining about us we had already committed our disgraceful deed. That deed was that we partook/consumed (akalnaa) of the bad company (shajarat) that we were not supposed to.
As of now I couldn't explain to you much more than that. Since I do believe that the Unverse is made up of different vibrations that constitute different levels of realities I can't explain what that bad company consisted of or on what level of reality it was on, but we recognized it as something we shouldn't mess with because it wasn't good for us and God told us this. But we didn't listen and thought that what we knew was bad was really good, despite what God said, despite the truth that was instilled in us by God.
It is interesting that we are living this same thing all over again. We learn what is bad for us and we are to stay away from it. That is the law of nature, and overall the law of God for us. Many of us will just repeat history despite all that we have been given to not repeat it. Go with what helps you not with what hurts you. Go with what you know is right and don't go against that. If you know you are wrong, then know you are wrong. If you know you are right then go with that. But go with what is good and go with what you know. God is truth and God is goodness.
But because we are corrupted (which doesn't mean lost for good or guilty) our corruption definitely shows. The righteous take heed and go with truth and good. The others see bad and let something convince them that they can obtain greatness from what is harmful.
All over again!!
Hopefully some of us can get it right.
Godbless,
ProGod