Adam in Islam

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Adam and the prostrate angels, illustration from a 16th century Persian manuscript

Adam ( Arabic آدم, DMG Ādam ) is not only considered the father of humanity in Islam , but also an important prophet . It is mentioned in 18 places in the Koran. For their part, the people are referred to in the Koran as “the children of Adam” ( banū Ādam ) (e.g. Sura 17:30). In the hadith collections, the Koran commentaries , the works of Islamic historiography and especially in the Qisas al-Anbiyāʾ literature, the Koranic statements about Adam are supplemented by numerous legends, some of which stem from the Jewish tradition. Adam's name is explained by the Koran exegetes as saying that God created him from the surface ( adīm ) of the earth.

Adam in the Koran

The angels prostrate themselves before Adam, with the exception of Satan , who refuses. Illustration in a Persian translation of at-Tabarīs World Chronicle from 1416, today in the Museum of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.
Sura 2.30-37

In Sura 2: 30-37 the creation of Adam and his expulsion from paradise is reported. God announces to the angels that he will appoint a representative ( khalīfa ) on earth. After the angels were amazed, God created Adam and taught him the names of all things. This knowledge sets him apart from the angels, for the angels do not know the names of things (2: 31-33). The angels are then asked by God to prostrate themselves to Adam, which they do, with the exception of Iblis , who is an unbeliever (2:34). God allows Adam and his wife to inhabit the garden, allowing them to eat of all the fruits of the garden, with the exception of a certain tree that is forbidden to them (2:35). Satan seduces the two into breaking the commandment, whereupon they are driven out by God and abandoned on earth (2:36). However, Adam subsequently receives certain words from God, and God returns to him graciously (2:37).

Sura 20,115-122

The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise is also dealt with in Sura 20: 115-122. It is first noted that God made an obligation on Adam, but Adam forgot (20: 115). It is related that the angels once fell before Adam on God's command, except for Iblīs (20: 116). God then warned Adam about Iblīs and the negative consequences of being driven out of Paradise (20: 117-9). However, Satan whispered to Adam to taste the "tree of immortality and rule that does not perish " ( šaǧarat al-ḫuld wa-mulk lā yablā ) (20: 120). After the two have eaten from the tree, they become aware of their shame (literally badness) and they begin to staple leaves of paradise over themselves. Although Adam has disobeyed his Lord (20: 121) the latter chooses him, turns back to him and guides him right (20: 122).

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, illustration from a Fāl-Nāma of the Safavid period
Sura 7: 11-27

The story about Adam and Iblīs can be found a third time in Sura 7: 11-27. Iblīs here refuses to prostrate himself before Adam, pointing out that he is better than Adam because he was created from fire, but Adam from earth (7:12). Thereupon he is expelled from Paradise by God, but asks for a delay until the day of the Last Judgment in order to now try to make people stray as well (7: 13-18). Satan whispers to Adam and his wife to eat from the forbidden tree, this time arguing that God only wanted to prevent them from becoming immortal beings (7:20). The two allow themselves to be seduced and, after repenting and asking for forgiveness, are thrown down by God to earth, where they are allowed to live as mortals (7: 21-25). Eventually, as sons of Adam ( banū Ādam ), people are warned to cover up their nakedness and not allow themselves to be seduced by Satan, lest they fare as their parents were when they were driven from Paradise (7: 26-27).

Further positions

Adam is mentioned briefly in various other places in the Koran. For the later Islamic picture of this figure, the statement in sura 3:33 was very important that God chose Adam together with Noah , the family of Abraham and the family of Amrams .

Adam in the Islamic tradition

In the exegesis of the various Koranic passages that deal with Adam, the Muslim scholars made use of the oral tradition of Judaism as it is recorded in the Talmud and Midrash . In this way, various elements from the Old Testament found their way into the Islamic Adam tradition that are not contained in the Koran. This includes in particular the name of Eve, which is not mentioned in the Koran, as well as the snake from the biblical account of the Fall , which is also not mentioned in the Koran. According to the Koran exegetes az-Zamachscharī and al-Baidawi , Satan hid himself in the head of the serpent in order to be able to get back to paradise after his fall.

In the Islamic tradition, the image of Adam as a whole was enriched with many legendary elements. A common hadith reports that God created Adam on a Friday . It was widely believed that Adam was particularly tall. Its length is said to have been 60 cubits , although there was dissent over the question of whether this was its original size or whether it was only reduced to this size after the fall of man.

Landing on earth and trek to Mecca

Adam's Peak , over which Adam is said to have descended from Paradise to earth

The place where Adam landed on earth when he was expelled from Paradise is given as India or Sarandīb. Sarandīb is the old Arabic name for the island of Sri Lanka . The Muslims later identified the place through which Adam is said to have descended to earth with Adam's Peak . The Maghreb traveler Ibn Battūta from the 14th century describes in his Rihla how he climbed this mountain on the island of Sarandīb to see Adam's footprint there.

From India or Sarandīb, Adam is said to have started the journey to Mecca by order of God . There he established the Kaaba and performed the Umra . In building the Kaaba, Adam used stones from five different mountains: Mount Hirā ' , Lebanon , Mount Jūdī , the Mount of Olives and Mount Sinai . Then an angel took him to ʿArafāt , where he found Eve again on ʿArafa day and was taught by the angel the rites of Hajj , which people perform to this day.

It is also widely believed that India's fertility and abundance of spices goes back to Adam. ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās is quoted as saying: "When Adam descended from Paradise, he had aromatic plants ( ṭīb ) with him. He planted the trees of India in the valleys of the country, their origin is in Paradise. So the land there was filled with aromatic plants That is why the spices are brought from India. Their origin is Adam's scent, his scent is the scent of paradise. " The East Iranian traditionarian al-Chuttalī (d. 896) narrates the statement: "When Adam left paradise, he had a bundle ( ḍiġṯ ) of cut branches with him. He planted them in India. What is mentioned of aromatic plants in India, everything comes from that bundle. "

Adam's prophethood

The idea of ​​Adam's prophethood emerged from Sura 3:33 and various traditions such as the Miʿrāj narrative, in which Adam is mentioned in a series with other pre-Islamic prophets. These series of prophets, in which Adam appears, had an influence that Adam was soon regarded as a prophet himself. Already al-Hasan al-Basri to Sura 3:33 have understood in the sense that the person mentioned here, among which also was Adam, had been awarded the prophethood. To support the idea of ​​Adam's prophethood, a hadith was cited according to which Mohammed had confirmed this to his companion Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī. As a prophet, Adam is said to have founded his own religion, which also knew legal provisions ( šarāʾiʿ ) and duties ( farāʾiḍ ).

Progeny and original contract

Eve is said to have given birth to twins to Adam twenty times, a boy and a girl each, except for Seth , whom she bore as an only child. The sons and daughters were then each cross-married to one another. Adam is said to have died only after seeing 40,000 children and grandchildren.

The idea of ​​the original contract ( mīṯāq ) was also of great importance for the Islamic image of Adam . It follows on from sura 7: 172-3, where it is said that God “took their offspring from the loins of the children of Adam” and had them testify that he was their Lord so that they could not say on the day of the resurrection that they didn't know about it. Although Adam is not mentioned here at all, only Adam's children, this process was imagined in such a way that God took all of humanity in the form of pre-existing beings "from Adam's back" and had them testify that God was theirs Lord be. Adam himself is said to have been lying lifeless on the floor during this process, which is localized and temporally differently. This "covenant in preexistence" was also very important within the Islamic discussions about predestination . A hadith , which was supposed to support the predestinian view and is narrated by Mālik ibn Anas in his Muwattaʾ , has the prophet Mohammed say:

“God created Adam. Then he stroked his back with his right hand and took offspring from him; he said: I made these for Paradise; they will act as destined for Paradise. Then he stroked his back again and took offspring from him; he said: I made these for the (hellish) fire; they will act as intended for the (infernal) fire. "

The idea that Adam's offspring were already ready in his loins also created a direct connection between Adam and Mohammed , because then Mohammed must have already been in Adam's loins. Muhammad's preexistence in Adam's loins was imagined in the form of a light. Various traditions tell of how this light passed over time from the loins of Adam through the loins of Noah and Abraham via the Quraish to the loins of Muhammad's father .

Adam's death and burial

As in the biblical story, Adam is ascribed a particularly old age in Islamic tradition. Originally, he should have been 1,000 years old, but when he learned that David would only live for a short time, he gave him forty years of his own life, so that he was only 960 years old.

There were various reports about the location of Adam's original burial site. One tradition located them on Mount Abū Qubais in Mecca . According to a well-known legend, which follows the Christian tradition from the Syrian-Aramaic treasure cave , Noah brought Adam's coffin into the ark during the flood and buried it in Jerusalem after the flood ended .

Shiite traditions

The Ali Shrine in Najaf, where the cenotaph of Adam is located according to Shiite tradition

According to Shiite tradition, shortly after his creation, Adam asked God whether he had created creatures that he dearer than himself. Thereupon God answered in the affirmative and explained to Adam that he had only created him for their sake. Then he had the angels show him the shadows of his descendants Mohammed, ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib , Fātima bint Muhammad , al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī and al-Husain ibn ʿAlī , who were in front of the divine throne. After the Fall, Adam asked God for forgiveness on behalf of these five people, and God forgave him. The Koranic word in sura 2:27 is supposed to refer to this fact, according to which Adam received words from his master, and the latter then turned to him again graciously. The five named persons together make up the five people of the coat , who are particularly venerated by the Shiites.

According to Shiite tradition, Noah buried Adam not in Jerusalem but in Najaf , where the tomb of ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālibs is also located. Ibn Battūta reported that the tombs of Adam and Noah were shown here in the ʿAlīs mausoleum .

literature

Arabic sources
  • al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ al-Anbiyāʾ . Ed. Āsiyā Kulaybān ʿAlī al-Bāriḥ. Beirut 2004. pp. 31-39. Digitized
  • al-Kisāʾī: Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ . Ed. Isaac Eisenberg. Brill, Leiden, 1922-23. Pp. 23-79. Wikisource
  • Al-Maǧlisī : Biḥār al-anwār . Dār Iḥyāʾ at-tūrāṯ al-ʿArabī, Beirut, 1983. Vol. XI, pp. 97-269. Digitized
  • al-Rabghūzī: Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ . Ed. Hendrik E. Boeschoten u. a. Brill, Leiden, 1995. Vol. I, pp. 12-31 (edition), Vol. II, pp. 12-49 (English translation).
  • Sibṭ Ibn al-Ǧauzī: Mirʾāt az-zamān fī taʾrīḫ al-aʿyān . Ed. Muḥammad Barakāt u. a. Dār ar-Risāla al-ʿĀlamīya. Beirut, 2013. Vol. I, pp. 232-296 digitized
  • Abū Ǧaʿfar Muḥammad b. Ǧarīr aṭ-Ṭabarī : Taʾrīḫ ar-rusul wa-l-mulūk . Edited by MJ de Goeje. Leiden 1879–1901. Prima Series, 1 pp. 86-178 - Engl. Übers .: The History of al-Ṭabarī Vol. I: General introduction and From the creation to the flood . Translated and annotated by Franz Rosenthal. SUNY Press, Albany 1989. pp. 257-334.
  • Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī : Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ or ʿArāʾis al-maǧālis. German translation by Heribert Busse under the title: Islamic Tales of Prophets and Men of God. Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 39-64.
  • At-Tarafī : Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ. Edited and commented under the title The stories of the prophets by Ibn Muṭarrif al-Ṭarafī by Roberto Tottoli. Schwarz, Berlin, 2003. Arabic text pp. 7–20 digitized , English commentary p. 21–30 digitized .
Studies
  • Ernst Beck: "Iblis and man, Satan and Adam. The development of a Koranic story" in Le Muséon 89 (1976) 195-244.
  • Michael G. Carter: "Adam and the technical terms of medieval Islam" in R. Arnzen (ed.): Words, texts and concepts cruising the Mediterranean Sea: studies on the sources, contents and influences of Islamic civilization and Arabic philosophy and science ; dedicated to Gerhard Endress on his sixty-fifth birthday . Leuven et al. a .: Peeters 2004. pp. 439-454.
  • CC Castillo: "La creatión de Adán segun la tradición y la leyenda musulmanas" in Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos 27-28 (1978-9) 131-48. Digitized
  • Leigh NB Chipman: Mythic aspects of the process of Adam's creation in Judaism and Islam in Studia Islamica 93 (2001) 5-25.
  • MJ Kister: "Legends in Tafsir and Hadith Literature: The Creation of Adam and Related Stories" in A. Rippin (ed.): Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'an. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. pp. 82-114.
  • MJ Kister: "Ādam. A study of some legends in tafsīr and ḥadīt Literature" in Israel Oriental Studies 13 (1993) 113-174. Available online here .
  • M. Mir: "Adam in the Qurʾān" in Islamic Culture 62 (1988) 1-11.
  • J. Pedersen: Art. "Ādam" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. I, pp. 176b-178b.
  • Stephen D. Ricks: "The garment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian tradition" in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren (eds.): Judaism and Islam. Boundaries, communication, and interaction. Essays in honor of William M. Brinner. Brill, Leiden, 2000. pp. 203-25.
  • Cornelia Schöck: Adam in Islam. A contribution to the history of ideas of the Sunnah . Klaus Schwarz, Berlin 1993. Digitized .
  • Cornelia Schöck: “Adam and Eve” in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Ed. JD McAuliffe, Leiden / Boston / Cologne: Brill, 2001-2006, Vol. I, pp. 22-26.
  • Heinrich Speyer : The Biblical Stories in the Qoran . C. Schulze & Co., Graefenhainichen, 1931. pp. 41-83.
  • Karel Steenbrink: Adam redivivus: Muslim elaborations of the Adam saga with special reference to the Indonesian literary traditions . Zoetermeer: ​​Meinema-Zoetermeer 1998.
  • Roberto Tottoli: "A proposito di un recente studio su Adamo nell'islam" in Annali dell 'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli 55 (1995) 437-45.
  • Samuel M. Zwemer: "The worship of Adam by angels" in The Muslim World 27 (1937) 115-127.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sura 17, verse 70
  2. ↑ Sura 2, verse 30
  3. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, 1.
  4. ↑ Cf. Abraham Katsh: Judaism in Islam. Biblical and Talmudic Backgrounds of the Koran and its commentaries. New York 1954. p. 34.
  5. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, pp. 1993, 63-66.
  6. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, pp. 1993, 69-73.
  7. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī 46.
  8. ↑ Ed. Ṭalāl Ḥarb. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿilmīya o. JS 601.
  9. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, p. 182.
  10. ↑ ʿAbd ar-Razzāq aṣ-Ṣanʿānī: al-Muṣannaf . Ed. Ḥabīb ar-Raḥmān al-Aʿẓamī. Beirut 1983. Vol. V, p. 92, No. 9092. Digitized
  11. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, p. 1993, 185.
  12. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī 48.
  13. ↑ Cf. Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḫuttalī: Kitāb ad-Dībāǧ . Ed. Ibrāhīm Ḥālim. Damascus 1994. p. 30.
  14. ↑ See Schöck 1993, 137-153.
  15. ↑ See Schöck 1993, 162.
  16. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, pp. 1993, 156-158.
  17. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, p. 1993, 177.
  18. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī 57.
  19. ↑ See Schöck: Adam in Islam. 1993, pp. 1993, 166-169.
  20. ↑ See Josef van Ess: Between Ḥadīṯ and Theology: Studies on the emergence of predestinian tradition . Berlin [u. a.]: de Gruyter, 1975. pp. 32-39.
  21. ↑ Quoted in van Ess 1975, 33.
  22. ↑ Cf. Marion Holmes Katz: The birth of the prophet Muhammad: devotional piety in Sunni Islam. London 2009. pp. 12-26.
  23. ↑ Cf. Pedersen 178a and aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī 62f.
  24. ↑ Cf. aṯ-Ṯaʿlabī 63 and Pedersen 178a.
  25. ↑ Sura 2, verse 37
  26. ↑ Al-Maǧlisī: Biḥār al-anwār . 1983, Vol. XI, p. 195.
  27. ↑ Cf. Irute Schober: The sanctuary ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālibs ​​in Naǧaf. Burial place and pilgrimage. Frankfurt / Main u. a. 1990. pp. 65-68.