The Story of Adam

[1] Muhammad ibn Al Husain al Ajjurri.

The Story of Adam (part 4 of 5): Life on Earth

Adam and Eve left Paradise and began their life on earth.  God had prepared them in many ways.  He gave them the experience of struggling against the whisperings and schemes of Satan.  He taught Adam the names of everything and instructed him in its properties and usefulness.  Adam took up his position as caretaker of the earth and Prophet of God.

Adam, the first Prophet of God was responsible for teaching his wife and offspring how to worship God and seek His forgiveness.  Adam established the laws of God and set about trying to support his family and learning to subdue and care for the earth.  His task was to perpetuate, cultivate, construct and populate; he was to raise children who would live according to God’s instructions and care for and improve the earth.

Adam’s First Four Children

Adam and Eve’s first children, Cain and his sister, were twins,; Abel and his sister, another set of twins, soon followed.  Adam and his family lived in peace and harmony.  Cain ploughed the earth while Abel raised livestock.  Time passed and the occasion came for the sons of Adam to marry.  A group of the companions of Prophet Muhammad including Ibn Abbas and Ibn Masud related that inter-marriage of the male of one pregnancy with the female of another had been the practice among Adam’s children. Therefore we know that God’s plan to fill the earth included each of Adam’s sons marrying the twin sister of the other.

It seems that beauty has played a part in the attraction of men and women since the beginning.  Cain was not pleased with the partner chosen for him.  Cain began to envy his brother and refused to obey the command of his father and, in doing so, he disobeyed God.  God created man with both good and bad tendencies, and the struggle to over come our baser instincts is part of His test for us.

God commanded that each son was to offer a sacrifice.  His judgement would favour the son whose offer was the most acceptable.  Cain offered his worst grain, but Abel offered his best livestock.  God accepted Abel’s sacrifice, so Cain became enraged, threatening to kill his brother.

“And (O Muhammad) recite to them (the Jews) the story of the two sons of Adam (Abel and Cain) in truth; when each offered a sacrifice to God, it was accepted from the one but not from the other.  The latter said to the former; ‘I will surely kill you.’” (Quran 5:27)

Abel advised his brother that God would accept good deeds from those that fear and serve Him, but  reject the good deeds of those who are arrogant, selfish and disobedient towards God.

“The former said: ‘Verily God accepts only from those who are pious.  If you do stretch your hand against me to kill me I shall never stretch my hand against you to kill you, for I fear God; the Lord of mankind, jinn, and all that exists.’” (Quran 5:27-28)

The First Murder

“So the self  (base desires) of the other (latter one) encouraged him and made fair seeming to him the murder of his brother; he murdered him and became one of the losers.” (Quran 5:28)

Prophet Muhammad informed us that Cain became angry and hit his brother over the head with a piece of iron.  It was also said in another narration that Cain hit Abel over the head while he was sleeping.

“God sent a crow who scratched the ground to show him to hide the dead body of his brother.  He (the murderer) said: ‘Woe to me!

Am I not even able to be as this crow and to hide the dead body of my brother?’  Then he became one of those who regretted.” (Quran 5:30)

Adam was devastated; he had lost both his first and second born sons.  One had been murdered; the other was won over by mankind’s greatest enemy – Satan.  Patiently, Adam prayed for his son, and continued to care for the earth.  He taught his many children and grandchildren about God.  He told them of his own encounter with Satan and advised them to beware of Satan’s tricks and schemes.  Years and years passed, and  Adam grew old and his children spread out across the earth.

Adam’s Death

All of mankind are the children of Adam.  In one narration, the Prophet Muhammad informed us that God showed Adam his descendants.  Adam saw a beautiful light in Prophet David’s eyes and loved him, so he turned to God and said: “Oh God.  Give him forty years from my life.”  God granted Adam his request, and it was written down and sealed.

Adam’s life span was supposed to be 1000 years but after 960 years the Angel of death came to Adam.  Adam was surprised and said “but I still have 40 years to live”.  The angel of death reminded him of his gift of 40 years to his beloved descendant Prophet David, but  Adam denied it.  Many, many years later, the last Prophet Muhammad said: “Adam denied so the children of Adam deny, Adam forgot and his children forget; Adam made mistakes and his children make mistakes.” (At-Tirmidhi)

In Arabic the word for mankind is insan and it comes from the root word nisyan  to forget.  This is part of human nature, mankind forgets, and when we forget we deny and reject.  Adam forgot (he was not lying), and God forgave him.  Adam then submitted to the will of God and died.  The Angels descended and washed the body of Prophet Adam an odd number of times; they dug the grave and buried the body of the father of mankind, Adam.

Adam’s successor

Before his death Adam reminded his children that God would never leave them alone or without guidance.  He told them God would send other Prophets with unique names, traits and miracles, but they would all call to the same thing – the worship of the One True God.  Adam appointed as his successor his son Seth.

The Story of Adam (part 5 of 5): The First Man and Modern Science

In Islam, there is no conflict between faith in God and modern scientific knowledge.  Indeed, for many centuries during the Middle Ages, Muslims led the world in scientific inquiry and exploration.  The Quran itself, revealed around 14 centuries ago, is filled with facts and imagery that are supported by modern scientific findings.  Three of those will be mentioned here. Of them, the development of language and mitrochondrial Eve (genetics) are relatively new areas of scientific research.

The Quran instructs Muslims to “contemplate the wonders of creation” (Quran 3:191)

One of the items for contemplation is the statement:

“Truly, I am going to create man from clay...” (Quran 38:71)

Indeed, many elements present in the earth are also contained in the human body.  The most critical component to land-based life is the top soil; that thin layer of dark, organically rich soil in which plants spread out their roots.  It is in this thin, vital layer of soil that microorganisms convert raw resources, the minerals that constitute the basic clay of this topsoil, and make them available to the myriad forms of life around and above them.

Minerals are inorganic elements that originate in the earth which the body cannot make.  They play important roles in various bodily functions and are necessary to sustain life and maintain optimal health, and thus are essential nutrients.[1]  These minerals cannot be man made; they cannot be produced in a laboratory nor can they be manufactured in a factory

With cells consisting of 65-90% water by weight, water, or H₂O, makes up most of the human body.  Therefore most of a human body’s mass is oxygen.  Carbon, the basic unit for organic molecules, comes in second.  99% of the mass of the human body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.[2]

The human body contains trace amounts of almost every mineral on earth; including sulphur, potassium, zinc, copper, iron, aluminium, molybdenum, chromium, platinum, boron, silicon   selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, chlorine, iodine, manganese, cobalt,  lithium, strontium, aluminium, lead, vanadium, arsenic, bromine  and more.[3]  Without these minerals, vitamins may have little or no effect.  Minerals are catalysts, triggers for thousands of essential enzyme reactions in the body.  Trace elements play a key role in the functioning of a healthy human being.  It is known that insufficient iodine will induce a disease of the thyroid gland and a deficiency of cobalt will leave us without vitamin B₁₂, and thus unable to manufacture red blood cells.

           Another verse to contemplate is:

“He taught Adam all the names of everything.” (Quran 2:31)

Adam was taught the names of everything; the powers of reasoning and free will were given to him.  He learned how to categorise things and understand their usefulness.  Thus, God taught Adam language skills.  He taught Adam how to think – to apply knowledge to solve problems, make plans and decisions and to achieve goals.  We, the children of Adam, have inherited these skills in order that we can exist in the world and worship God in the best manner.

Linguists estimate that more than 3000 separate languages exist in the world today, all distinct, so that speakers of one cannot understand those of another, yet these languages are all so fundamentally similar that it is possible to speak of a “human language’ in the singular.[4]

Language is a special form of communication that involves learning complex rules to make and combine symbols (words or gestures) into an endless number of meaningful sentences.  Language exists because of two simple principles, - words and grammar.

A word is an arbitrary pairing between a sound or symbol and a meaning.  For example, in English the word cat does not look or sound or feel like a cat, but it refers to a certain animal because all of us memorised this pairing as children.  Grammar refers to a set of rules for combing words into phrases and sentences.  It may seem surprising, but speakers of all 3000 separate languages learned the same four rules of language.[5]

The first language rule is phonology – how we make meaningful sounds.  Phonemes are basic sounds.  We combine phonemes to form words by learning the second rule: morphology. Morphology is the system we use to group phonemes into meaningful combinations of sounds and words.  A morpheme is the smallest, meaningful combination of sounds in a language.  After learning to combine morphemes to produce words, we learn to combine words into meaningful sentences.  The third language rule governs syntax or grammar.  This set of rules specifies how we combine words to form meaningful phrases and sentences.  The fourth language rule governs semantics – the specific meaning of words or phrases as they appear in various sentences or contexts.

All children, regardless of where in the world they are, go through the same four language stages because of innate language factors. These factors facilitate how we make speech sounds and acquire language skills. The renowned linguist Noam Chomsky says that all languages share a common universal grammar, and that children inherit a mental programme to learn this universal grammar.[6]

A third verse to ponder is about progeniture:

“O Mankind!  Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person (Adam) and from Him (Adam) He created his wife (Eve), and from them both He created many men and women.” (Quran 4:1)

The realisation that all mtDNA lineages (Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas) can be traced back to a single origin is popularly called the “mitochondrial Eve” theory.  According to top scientists[7]  and cutting-edge research, everyone on the planet today can trace a specific part of his or her genetic heritage back to one woman through a unique part of our genetic makeup, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).  The mtDNA of “mitochondrial Eve” has been passed down through the centuries from mother to daughter (men are carriers, but don’t pass it on) and exists within all people living today.[8]  It is popularly known as the Eve theory because, as can be deduced from the above, it is passed down through the X chromosome.  Scientists are also studying DNA from the Y chromosome (perhaps to be dubbed the “Adam theory”), which is passed only from father to son and is not recombined with the mother’s genes.

These are but three of  the many wonders of creation God suggests we contemplate through his verses in the Quran.  The entire universe, which was created by God, follows and obeys His laws.  Therefore Muslims are encouraged to seek knowledge, explore the universe, and find the “Signs of God” in His creation.