Prophet Adam (AS) – The First Man حضرت آدم علیہ السلام – پہلے انسان

The story of mankind does not begin on the earth. It begins in the heavens, with an announcement. Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, said to the angels: “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority (khalifah).” The angels, who knew nothing of what this new creature would be, asked: “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?” Allah replied: “Indeed, I know that which you do not know” (Al-Baqarah 2:30).

This short exchange tells us a great deal. The angels were not objecting; they were asking, as servants ask their Master, in order to understand. Their question shows that they already knew that free creatures on an earth of limited resources could fall into violence, and that they themselves lived in perfect obedience. Allah’s answer did not deny that some of Adam’s children would shed blood. Instead it pointed to something larger that only He knew: among the children of Adam there would be prophets, martyrs, the truthful and the righteous, people who would worship Him by choice, struggle against their own desires, repent after sinning, and love Him without ever having seen Him. The scholars explain that the word khalifah here means a generation that succeeds another upon the earth, and a creature entrusted with ruling by the law of Allah.

Allah then informed the angels of what was to come: “Indeed, I am going to create a human being from clay. So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down to him in prostration” (Sad 38:71–72; Al-Hijr 15:28–29). The angels were thus prepared in advance: the moment the new creation was complete, they were to honour him with a prostration of respect, not of worship, for worship belongs to Allah alone.

The Quran describes the stages of the material from which Adam was made. He was created from dust (turab) (Al Imran 3:59), from clay (tin) (Al-An’am 6:2), from sticky clay (As-Saffat 37:11), from an extract of clay (Al-Mu’minun 23:12), from “clay of altered black mud” (Al-Hijr 15:26), and finally from dried clay “like that of pottery” (Ar-Rahman 55:14). These are not contradictions but a sequence: the dust was moistened into clay, left until it darkened and became sticky, shaped, and dried until it rang like fired earthenware. Then came the breath of the spirit.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gave us a beautiful detail about this clay. He said: “Allah created Adam from a handful which He took from the whole of the earth, so the children of Adam came according to the earth: among them are the red, the white, the black and those in between; the soft and the hard; the wicked and the good” (Sunan Abi Dawud 4693; Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2955, graded sahih). Every colour and temperament among human beings is therefore part of the original design, and no race has any claim of superiority over another.

The Prophet ﷺ also told us when this creation took place in the order of days: “The best day on which the sun has risen is Friday. On it Adam was created, on it he was admitted into Paradise, and on it he was expelled from it” (Sahih Muslim 854). Everything about the beginning of man, then, was deliberate, announced, and honoured. Before Adam ever opened his eyes, his place in the universe had been declared by his Creator.

When the clay form was complete, Allah breathed into it of the spirit He had created, and Adam (AS) became a living, seeing, hearing, thinking man. Some narrations from the early generations describe how, as the spirit entered him, he sneezed and said “Al-hamdu lillah” (All praise is for Allah), and was answered, “May your Lord have mercy on you.” This report is found in at-Tirmidhi (3368) in a longer hadith and was accepted by many scholars, though others discussed its chain; it is mentioned here as a reported detail, not as a certainty.

The Prophet ﷺ described Adam’s form: “Allah created Adam sixty cubits tall. Then He said: Go and greet that group of angels and listen to how they greet you, for it will be your greeting and the greeting of your descendants. So Adam said: As-salamu alaykum (peace be upon you). They replied: As-salamu alayka wa rahmatullah (peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah). So they added ‘and the mercy of Allah’. Everyone who enters Paradise will be in the form of Adam, and people have continued to decrease in height until now” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3326; Sahih Muslim 2841). The very first words exchanged between a human being and another creature were words of peace, and that greeting still lives on the lips of Muslims across the world.

Then came the moment the angels had been commanded to prepare for. “So the angels prostrated – all of them entirely, except Iblis” (Al-Hijr 15:30–31). Iblis was not an angel by origin; the Quran says plainly that “he was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord” (Al-Kahf 18:50). Yet he had risen through worship to stand among the angels, and the command included him. When he refused, Allah asked him: “What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?” His answer has echoed through history as the first sin ever committed: “I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay” (Al-A’raf 7:12).

Iblis’s error was not ignorance. He knew who Allah was; he addressed Him directly. His error was arrogance: he judged his own worth by his origin, set his opinion above the clear command of his Creator, and refused to submit. For that, Allah cast him out: “Get out of it, for indeed you are expelled. And indeed, upon you is the curse until the Day of Recompense” (Al-Hijr 15:34–35). Allah also said of him: “He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers” (Al-Baqarah 2:34).

Iblis did not repent. Instead he asked for respite until the Day of Resurrection, and it was granted to him until the appointed time. Then he declared war on the creature for whose sake he had been humiliated: “Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path. Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful” (Al-A’raf 7:16–17). He swore: “By Your might, I will surely mislead them all, except among them Your chosen servants” (Sad 38:82–83). Allah’s reply drew the final line: “Indeed, My servants – no authority will you have over them” (Al-Hijr 15:42), and “I will surely fill Hell with you and those of them that follow you all together” (Sad 38:85).

In this scene the whole drama of human life was set out before Adam had taken a single step. There is a Creator who commands; a creature who obeys or refuses; an enemy who lies in wait; and a promise that whoever remains a sincere servant of Allah is beyond that enemy’s reach. Ibn Kathir notes that the prostration to Adam was an honour to him, a test of the angels, and the beginning of the enmity between Iblis and the children of Adam that will last until the end of the world.

Allah did not leave the angels’ question unanswered. He showed them, in a way they could witness, why this new creature deserved the role of khalifah. “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. They said: Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise. 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 unseen of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you have concealed” (Al-Baqarah 2:31–33).

The commentators say “the names” means the names of all things: creatures, objects, their qualities and uses, and the language with which to speak of them. Ibn Abbas said it included everything, down to the smallest vessel. What distinguished Adam was not greater strength or longer worship than the angels, but knowledge: the capacity to learn, to name, to understand, and to pass that understanding on. This is why Islam has always honoured learning, and why the first word revealed to the final Prophet ﷺ was “Read” (Al-‘Alaq 96:1).

Adam was placed in Paradise, but he was alone. Allah created for him a companion from his own kind. The Quran says that Allah “created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women” (An-Nisa 4:1), “that he might dwell in security with her” (Al-A’raf 7:189). The Prophet ﷺ said: “Treat women kindly, for woman was created from a rib, and the most curved part of the rib is its upper part. If you try to straighten it you will break it, and if you leave it, it will remain curved. So treat women kindly” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3331; Sahih Muslim 1468). Scholars have understood this hadith both literally, as describing the creation of Hawwa from Adam’s side, and as an instruction in patience and gentleness with the nature of women; in either case its purpose is kindness.

The Quran does not name Adam’s wife. The name Hawwa (Eve) comes from the early Muslim generations and the earlier scriptures, and Ibn Kathir explains that she was called Hawwa because she was created from a living being (hayy). Some narrations add details about Adam waking to find her beside him and the angels asking him her name; these are reports from the People of the Book and are not established by any authentic hadith, though they are not objectionable.

From this one couple came every human family that has ever existed. The Quran repeatedly reminds us of this shared origin to remove pride and division: “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you” (Al-Hujurat 49:13). The Prophet ﷺ said in his farewell sermon that all people are from Adam, and Adam was from dust, and that no Arab has superiority over a non-Arab nor a white over a black except by piety (Musnad Ahmad 23489, graded sahih).

So the first human home was a home of knowledge, companionship and peace, set in the gardens of Paradise, with the whole of creation named and understood. Only one small limit had been placed upon it, and that limit would become the first test.

Allah said to Adam: “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-Baqarah 2:35). The permission was wide and the prohibition narrow: everything was allowed except one tree. The Quran does not tell us what kind of tree it was, and the reports that call it wheat, a fig, a grapevine or something else come from the People of the Book; none is established, and knowing its species would add nothing to the lesson.

Allah also gave Adam a clear warning about his enemy: “O Adam, indeed this is an enemy to you and to your wife. Then let him not remove you from Paradise so you would suffer. Indeed, it is for you not to be hungry therein or be unclothed, and indeed, you will not be thirsty therein or be hot from the sun” (Ta-Ha 20:117–119). Adam knew who Iblis was. He had watched him refuse to prostrate and heard him swear to mislead mankind.

But Iblis was patient and cunning. He did not come as an open enemy. “Satan whispered to him, saying: O Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and possession that will not deteriorate?” (Ta-Ha 20:120). To both of them he said: “Your Lord did not forbid you this tree except that you become angels or become of the immortal.” And then, the Quran says, “he swore to them: Indeed, I am to you from among the sincere advisors” (Al-A’raf 7:20–21). Adam had never heard anyone swear falsely by Allah. He could not imagine that a creature would use the name of Allah to lie. That trust was exactly what Iblis exploited.

“So he made them fall through deception. And when they tasted of the tree, their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten together over themselves from the leaves of Paradise” (Al-A’raf 7:22). “And Adam disobeyed his Lord and erred” (Ta-Ha 20:121). The Quran also explains the inner cause: “We had already taken a covenant from Adam before, but he forgot; and We found not in him determination” (Ta-Ha 20:115). It was not rebellion, as with Iblis; it was forgetfulness and weakness of resolve in the face of a persistent, sweetly worded temptation.

It is important to note what the Quran does not say. It does not say that Hawwa tempted Adam, or that she was to blame for the fall. Both of them were addressed, both were deceived, both ate, and both are held responsible together: “Their Lord called to them: Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you that Satan is to you a clear enemy?” (Al-A’raf 7:22). The accounts that place the fault on the woman belong to other traditions, not to the Quran.

Ibn Kathir draws attention to how Iblis worked: he began by casting doubt on the reason for the prohibition, then offered a reward that appealed to a natural human longing – to live forever and never lose what one has – and then sealed it with an oath in the name of Allah. The same three steps are used against the children of Adam every day: “Why would this be forbidden?”, “Think what you would gain”, and “Trust me.” The moment they ate, the covering of Paradise was lifted from them, and they felt shame for the first time, reaching for leaves to cover themselves. Shame, modesty and the desire to be clothed are therefore part of our original nature, not a later invention of culture.

What Adam did next is the reason his story is told as a story of hope rather than of ruin. He did not argue, as Iblis had. He did not blame his wife, or Iblis, or the beauty of the tree. He and Hawwa turned to Allah and 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-A’raf 7:23). The Quran describes this as Allah’s gift: “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-Baqarah 2:37). Many commentators say the “words” Adam received were this very supplication in Al-A’raf 7:23; Allah taught him how to ask, and then answered the asking.

The contrast between Adam and Iblis is the heart of the whole account. Both disobeyed. Iblis responded with pride, excuses and defiance, and was cursed forever. Adam responded with humility, confession and a plea for mercy, and was forgiven and honoured: “Then his Lord chose him and turned to him in forgiveness and guided him” (Ta-Ha 20:122). The sin is not what finally defines a person; what defines him is what he does afterwards.

Forgiveness did not mean that life would go on as before. Allah said: “Get down from it, all of you, as enemies to one another. And you will have upon the earth a place of settlement and provision for a time” (Al-Baqarah 2:36; Al-A’raf 7:24). Paradise had been a place of ease; the earth was to be a place of trial, work, hunger, heat and death. Yet the descent was not merely a punishment. The plan announced to the angels had always been a khalifah on the earth. Adam went down as a forgiven prophet carrying guidance, not as a condemned exile.

And with the descent came a promise that frames all of human history: “Get down from it, all of you. And when guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance – there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve. And those who disbelieve and deny Our signs – those will be the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally” (Al-Baqarah 2:38–39). In Ta-Ha the same promise is given with its opposite: “Whoever follows My guidance will neither go astray nor suffer. And whoever turns away from My remembrance – indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind” (Ta-Ha 20:123–124).

Allah also addressed all of Adam’s descendants directly through this story: “O children of Adam, let not Satan tempt you as he removed your parents from Paradise, stripping them of their clothing to show them their private parts. Indeed, he sees you, he and his tribe, from where you do not see them” (Al-A’raf 7:27). Clothing itself is described as one of Allah’s gifts, with the reminder that “the clothing of righteousness – that is best” (Al-A’raf 7:26).

Where Adam first set foot on the earth is not stated in the Quran or in any authentic hadith. Reports attributed to some early narrators place his descent in India and Hawwa’s in Jeddah, with their meeting at Arafat; these are Isra’iliyyat-type reports without a sound chain and are not established. What is established is the Prophet’s ﷺ account of a debate that took place long afterwards between two prophets. Adam and Musa (AS) met, and Musa said: “You are Adam, whom Allah created with His hand, breathed into of His spirit, had the angels prostrate to, and settled in His Paradise; then, because of your sin, you caused mankind to descend to the earth.” Adam replied: “You are Musa, whom Allah chose with His message and His speech. Do you blame me for a matter that Allah had decreed for me forty years before He created me?” The Prophet ﷺ concluded: “So Adam prevailed over Musa” (Sahih al-Bukhari 6614; Sahih Muslim 2652). The scholars explain that Adam did not use the decree to excuse the sin itself – he had already repented of it – but to answer blame for a calamity that had passed and had been forgiven; a person may take comfort in Allah’s decree after a misfortune, but may never use it as an excuse before committing a sin.

On the earth Adam and Hawwa began their family, and the Quran tells one story from among their children that Allah commanded His Messenger ﷺ to recite “in truth” (Al-Ma’idah 5:27). The two sons are not named in the Quran; the names Qabil and Habil (Cain and Abel) come from the earlier scriptures and the early commentators. Each of them offered a sacrifice to Allah. “It was accepted from one of them but was not accepted from the other.” The one whose sacrifice was rejected said to his brother: “I will surely kill you.” The brother answered with words that remain a model of righteousness: “Indeed, Allah only accepts from the righteous. If you should raise your hand against me to kill me, I shall not raise my hand against you to kill you. Indeed, I fear Allah, Lord of the worlds. Indeed, I want you to obtain my sin and your sin, so you will be among the companions of the Fire. And that is the recompense of wrongdoers” (Al-Ma’idah 5:27–29).

The commentators, drawing on reports from Ibn Abbas and others, say that the cause of the quarrel was a marriage; in that first generation, when there was no one else on earth, brothers married sisters from different births, and one son wished to marry the sister allotted to the other. This explanation is widely reported but rests on narrations from the early generations and from the People of the Book, not on an explicit text of the Quran or an authentic marfu’ hadith. The Quran itself makes the cause clear in moral terms: the sacrifice of one was accepted because he was righteous, and the other was consumed by envy.

“And his soul permitted him the murder of his brother, so he killed him and became among the losers” (Al-Ma’idah 5:30). Then, standing over the body, the killer did not know what to do with it; death had never been seen among human beings before. “Then Allah sent a crow searching in the ground to show him how to hide the disgrace of his brother. He said: Woe to me! Have I failed to be like this crow and hide the disgrace of my brother? And he became of the regretful” (Al-Ma’idah 5:31). His regret, the scholars note, was not repentance; it was the regret of a man who sees what he has lost, not the repentance of a man who turns back to Allah.

From this one killing, Allah drew a law for all mankind: “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely” (Al-Ma’idah 5:32). The Prophet ﷺ taught that the first son of Adam carries a lasting burden for having opened this door: “No soul is killed unjustly except that a share of its blood falls upon the first son of Adam, because he was the first to establish the practice of killing” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3335; Sahih Muslim 1677).

The Prophet ﷺ also used the example of the murdered son to teach his companions how to behave in times of civil strife, when Muslim turns against Muslim. He said: “Be like the better of the two sons of Adam” (Sunan Abi Dawud 4257; Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2194, graded sahih), meaning: prefer to be the one who is wronged rather than the one who wrongs.

In the story of the two brothers we see, in miniature, the fulfilment of what both the angels and Allah had said at the beginning. There was bloodshed and corruption, as the angels had feared; but there was also, in the murdered brother, a servant who feared Allah, Lord of the worlds, and refused to do evil even to save his own life, exactly the kind of servant Allah had told the angels they did not yet know. Ibn Kathir records that Adam grieved greatly, and some reports describe him mourning for many years; the grief is natural, and the details are not established.

The Quran records a covenant taken from all of Adam’s descendants before they were born: “And when your Lord took from the children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants and made them testify of themselves: Am I not your Lord? They said: Yes, we have testified. Lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection: Indeed, we were unaware of this” (Al-A’raf 7:172). Every human being, therefore, carries within his nature a recognition of his Creator; the Prophet ﷺ said: “Every child is born upon the fitrah (natural disposition), and it is his parents who make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1385; Sahih Muslim 2658).

A hadith in at-Tirmidhi (3076, graded hasan) describes Allah wiping Adam’s back and bringing out his descendants, and Adam seeing among them a man with a shining face. He asked who it was and was told it was his son Dawud, and that he had been given sixty years of life. Adam said: “My Lord, add forty years to him from my life.” Adam’s life had been written as one thousand years. When the angel of death came to him at nine hundred and sixty, Adam said: “Do I not still have forty years?” He was reminded that he had given them to his son Dawud, but he had forgotten. The Prophet ﷺ said: “So Adam forgot and his descendants forget; Adam denied and his descendants deny.” From that time, the hadith adds, written records and witnesses were commanded. The age of one thousand years is also mentioned in reports from the People of the Book; Ibn Kathir accepts it on the strength of this hadith.

Adam was a prophet, and Allah spoke to him. When Abu Dharr asked the Prophet ﷺ whether Adam was a prophet, he replied: “Yes, a prophet to whom Allah spoke” (reported by Ibn Hibban 361 and others; its chain is discussed, but the meaning is agreed upon by the scholars). He was also, as the hadith of intercession puts it, “the father of mankind, whom Allah created with His own hand, breathed into of His spirit, commanded the angels to prostrate to, and taught the names of all things” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3340, 4712; Sahih Muslim 194). On the Day of Resurrection, when people seek someone to intercede with Allah to begin the Judgement, they will go first to Adam, and he will remember his slip and say, “Myself, myself – go to someone else,” sending them to Nuh.

The Prophet ﷺ met Adam in the first heaven on the night of the Mi’raj. He described him as a man with great souls on his right and great souls on his left; when he looked to his right he laughed, and when he looked to his left he wept. Jibril explained: “This is Adam, and those are the souls of his descendants; the ones on the right are the people of Paradise and the ones on the left are the people of the Fire” (Sahih al-Bukhari 349; Sahih Muslim 163). Adam greeted him with the words: “Welcome, righteous son and righteous prophet.”

About Adam’s death and burial there is a report from Ubayy ibn Ka’b (Musnad Ahmad 21236; graded sahih by some scholars) that when he died the angels washed him, shrouded him, prayed over him and buried him, saying to his children: “This is the way of the children of Adam when they die.” Before his death, according to the same reports, he appointed his son Shith (Seth) as his successor; some narrations say that fifty scrolls were revealed to Shith, but that is not established. Where Adam was buried – Makkah, Jerusalem or elsewhere – is the subject of differing reports from the People of the Book and cannot be confirmed.

Adam’s legacy is nothing less than humanity itself. From him came the greeting of peace, the first words of repentance, the honour of knowledge, the law of clothing and modesty, and the first witness that killing one soul is like killing all mankind. Every prophet after him walked the same road he opened: calling people back to the Lord who had asked them, before they were born, “Am I not your Lord?”