Story of Adam and Eve

All praise is due to the one Lord and creator, who has created Adam and Eve from clay, and has fashioned us and will save us on Judgement Day. We ask his guidance, His mercy, and upon Him we have reliance. And to him we seek our only true guidance. And we asked him to send his Peace, blessings and mercy on the best of human beings and profits from Adam, our Father, to Abraham, Noah, Jesus, Moses, and all of the prophets and messengers until the final of them, Mohammed, upon whom he prays until the very end of our days. And we asked him for steadfastness, guidance, mercy, and to never lead us astray and for him to save us on Judgement Day. I welcome all of you to discover Islam, we

here in St. Aston Villa, I want to say it, because they have to excuse my American accent.

Aston University, I first of all, thank the ISOC here for inviting me My name is Hasib nor I live in the city of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. Medina, and I have lived there for the past 10 years I grew up in the United States. And I graduated in a degree in Islamic law had studied in the United States as well, psychology and minor in pre med. And I spent the rest of my life pretty much studying this religion that we call Islam, that we're going to talk about here today. And the topic is something that's very, very important, and actually deals with all of us, which is the Muslim narrative of the Prophet Adam, or Adam and Eve, our mother and father, one of the most important

things to understand before we discuss this Muslim narrative, is that what do Muslims in fact, believe when it comes to God, as well as revelation from him, as well as what do they believe about Adam and Eve subsequently thereafter? So first and foremost, you have to understand that as Muslims, we don't believe that there is a Muslim narrative.

And we don't believe that there's a narrative for Jewish tradition. And we don't believe that there's a narrative specific to the Christian tradition, we believe there is only one religion, and that religion was the revelation from God, the Creator, to to mankind and humanity, from our father, Adam, all the way until the rest of the prophets and messengers, subsequently sending revelation from the heavens. And if that revelation were to be corrupted or changed, that further message to continue, and for the religion from the Creator, to be preserved, and that message to remain for humanity, of what God wants for us, and what our purpose should be in existence on this planet, he

would send prophets and messengers to preserve that faith. This is the Muslim narrative. And so subsequently, when we say the Muslim narrative of Moses, we believe that Moses was a prophet and messenger from God, who came because the previous messages were corrupted. And then when Moses passed his, his message was corrupted, and therefore it was time for Jesus to come and bring the preservation of the faith that God wanted for humanity. Therefore, this is the reason Jesus was sent to humanity. And when that message was corrupted, it was time for the final messenger to be sent with a revelation, which would be preserved, until the day of judgment, uncorrupted, which,

incidentally, its manuscript exists to this day in your city, Birmingham, and Birmingham University, you have the oldest manuscript of the Hold on, which preserves and is a testament to the promise that God sent to the final revelation saying in the hole on, I will send this revelation, and I will be its protector. And whoever of you finds a contradiction in this revelation, let them find it, because if it were, if it were a revelation, which has contradiction in it, then it is from other than God, because revelation can't have contradiction. Revelation can't have fallacy or unfactual information. It comes from the Creator, who is all knowing. So that has to be something in your

minds as we're discussing this. Because if you think that there's a Muslim narrative that is only specific to Muslims, this is a mistaken belief. Muslims, in fact, believe that we submit to the will of God, to the religion he sent to humanity. And that, in fact, is what Muslim means. It means literally an Arabic one who submits to the Divine Will of God. So whoever submits to the Divine Will of God, they're Muslim. Moses is Muslim, Jesus is Muslim, Abraham is Muslim, no, was Muslim, etc. And Adam and Eve were Muslim because they submitted themselves to the Divine Will of God, the verses that you heard being beautifully recited by your President, right, not Donald Trump, right.

Your ISOC president. May God bless him, he recited the verses of the stories

Adam in the full on, and this is immediately in the in the beginning of part of the Quran to give you an idea and understanding why God sent this as revelation. And we're going to kind of go through the story, as it was related to us in what we believe to be the final message to humanity. And for them to understand their purpose is for them to read this book. So the first announcement that God gave about Adam in the heavens, was when he called for a gathering with the angels. And he said to them, I am going to put a successor on this earth, a successor in Arabic, here, the word that was used was Khalifa, which means somebody that will come and will come generations after them,

generations after them, and someone that was supposed to live on this earth, and take the place of someone else. What does all this mean? So when God said, I will place a successor on this earth, in fact, the biblical narrative also states that there were people on earth before then, and they believed to be the devils and Satan, etc, there was creation before on Earth, before humanity. And obviously, this narrative continues in the Quran, saying that the successor after them will be Adam. And this is interesting before Adam was even created, God tells them I'm going to place a successor where, where

and heaven? Where?

Answer on Earth, right? On Earth, they're going to God is gonna place a successor on Earth. So it was part of God's plan for Adam to come on earth even before they were created.

This is very important to understand. Because in the Muslim narrative, God plans to put Adam on earth. And Earth is not a punishment. For Adam and Eve. This is the first thing you have to understand. So when he said that the first thing the angels responded to is they actually asked the question, they asked God a question saying, how will you put someone on earth when they will cause corruption and bloodshed? How would they know that?

How would they know that because they knew that there were a creation before human beings that were on Earth, we call it an Arabic jinn, or basically devils, and the progeny of Satan. They filled the earth with corruption and bloodshed. So they knew that Listen, if you're going to give another creation on this earth, they're going to commit the same kind of corruption and bloodshed as these kinds of creation. And they and these angels also said to God, we're the ones who celebrate your praise. And we understand your, your rank, your deity, your sanctity, but God said, I do this because I know what you do not know. And this ship with this very first verse, we understand that

Muslims believe that when Adam was sent to Earth, it is not a punishment. It was part of God's divine plan. Now this might ask, you might ask a very important question, why would then Adam commit a sin that we all know of? And it would be part of God's plan for him to be sent on earth? This question actually is an existential question every one of us faces.

If God knows I'm going to commit a sin, why then is he putting me through all this trouble?

If God has a plan already for me, then if he already knew I was going to commit a sin, why would he do this? To me?

This is the question of every human existence. And in fact, this is, the answer is in the story of Adam and Eve. And if I can give you an example of how Muslims answer that through what God sent as revelation, it is, in this kind of example, imagine if you worked in a company, right? And the President hires a intern brand new, fresh, right. And the first thing he does with this intern, and he, he, he gathers the entire company in an assembly. And he says, to you, who has now been a senior executive, you've reached your status, you've done your task, you've taken a long time to get where you are. And you've been promoted. It's taken a long, long time for you to get to where you are. But

the President says to the entire company, and you guess what, everyone? I'm going to

promote this intern to Vice President right now.

over everybody do, like are you out of your mind? Are you serious?

How can you do that? Right. The vast majority of the of the company, they wouldn't say those things they would say, all right, it's your it's your company.

But what if one of them like yourself, who have worked your entire life to be promoted, is now being replaced by this guy? And not only that, the president tells you why don't you go get himself a cup of tea.

Why don't you go take care of him?

What would you do? There will be some that would become arrogant and say, How dare you and speak up to the President.

The interesting thing is, this isn't about the president, the intern, obviously, God has a higher similar to than all of this, the angels accepted the decree of God. But not only that,

this president, in fact, sent a memo to the entire company, saying, guess what, guys,

he's not really being promoted to Vice President, we're actually going to send him to HR in Canada. All right. But you guys don't know, he doesn't know that yet. Only you do. So the entire company already got the memo, that he's not going to be vice president, we're just going to test them for a little bit, he's going to be shipped to Canada, if he proves his worth, then we'll bring him back. And he will maintain a status. So the entire company knew all the angels knew that the atom, the profit atom would be sent eventually, on Earth, which is part of God's decree and plan. And eventually he would use earth or be on earth to come to heaven, except one, who, even though he got

the memo, he couldn't accept the fact that God raised Adam to his status that he did. And that was Satan. In Arabic, we refer to him as a police, and at least means the one whom has forsaken the mercy of God. That's literally what it means. So someone who is completely forsaking the mercy of God, their beliefs. So in any case, so what did God do, God created Adam, after this grand announcement. And he said that he's doing this for a divine reason, he only knows, he only knows to place upon a successor on the earth. So Adam was created from the dust of the earth made into mud and clay. And then God's hands formed him and the spirit of life breathed into him, Adam was shaped

into human being. And he remained as a figure of clay for all of the angels and Satan to see Muslims don't believe the,

the figure Satan is a fallen angel. As isn't the biblical narrative. We believe that there are three forms of creation which have intellect, angels, human beings, and something we call devils in Arabic called jinn, these devils exists amongst us as well, and they have freedom of choice, just like we do. And like, Are you serious? There's devils here, right? Yes, we believe that every human being is actually appointed a devil to whisper to them

to do evil, and also devils in general, for them to exist now does devil mean negative connotation, no.

Devil in, in the sense that we believe can be good and can be good can be bad, they can be Christian, they can be Jewish, they can be Muslim, they can be Buddhists, they can be anything, it can be atheists, there, there are beings that exist within our realm that we cannot see. But they can see us. This is what we believe. Okay, exorcism, right. In any case, we're not gonna get into freaky stuff. But the point being is the figure Satan is a devil, which became evil. And therefore, before he became evil, he was actually one of the closest creatures to God. In fact, he became so close to God, that God raised him to the level of the angels. But he allowed this arrogance, to

bring him to the lowest of the lowest Yahoo very shortly, so that God basically created men, and he allowed him to be in this clay form for all to see, including Satan.

And as he saw him, he looked through him and he saw that he was very hollow. And this got to him and said, and he said to himself, how can he raise or promote right? creation, when I am a better creation made out of fire, and he's been made out of clay. When God, we believe,

put in the spirit of life into Adam.

He asked then the angels to prostrate Adam, to show respect to Adam. And when he did that, the angels all did so except Satan. And again, Satan was raised to the level of the angels because out of his closest to God, so God says in the Quran, your Lord said to the angel, I create a mortal out of dried clay, when I fashion him and breathed my spirit into him bow down before him. And all the angels did so except a blease meaning Satan, he refused to bow down like the others. God said, Why did you not bow down like the others? And he answered, I will not bow down to a mortal you created from drydock

Lay dark mud. God says to him, get out of here, you're an outcast and you're cursed until the day of judgment. And another verse of the Quran he says to him, get down from here. This is no place for your arrogance. Get out, you are disgraced. And another verse, God says, Get out, you're disgraced and banished. I swear I shall fill Hell with you, and all those who follow you. Then God says to Adam, Adam, live with your wife in the garden of Paradise, both of you eat freely, as much as you want, except this tree,

except this tree, or you will both become of the wrongdoers, if you eat from it, what happens? God places them in the garden to live. And Satan comes to them in order to deceit them into eating from this tree so that he can bring them down to his level. And this is what we believe that people who are wretched, want other people to be in their same status. And this is part of what Satan originally wanted to do. If he can bring you down, then he's gonna, if you can't take you from your pedestal, then he wants to bring you down to his level. And that's exactly what Satan did. God says in the hole on Satan whisper to them to expose their nakedness which had been hidden from them how

he said to them, your Lord only forbade you from this tree to prevent you from becoming angels, or Immortals in mortality. And he swore to them saying, I'm giving you sincere advice, trust me. I'm one of your friends, this tree out of all of the trees, and Heaven is good for you.

Now, he also comes to them not directly, because obviously they would they wouldn't listen to him. So he slowly tells them, Hey, are you hungry?

Do you like some strawberries?

Right? And they obviously would reject him. So he keeps coming to them and say, Did you know that Paradise is filled with trees, and out of out of the Sun out you will have as God says in the Quran, that its size is larger than what is known in the universe today, between the heavens and the earth. And out of all of those trees, how many trees are in paradise? There's one tree, it's the best tree. Trust me, that tree will bring you a mortality.

Let me go tell Eve.

And this is pretty much what happened. He lured them with lies, God says. And when he did, so they began to eat from the tree. And one of the most beautiful things in the in the Koran is that it was not Eve who lured Adam to eating.

From the from the tree, what kind of tree was it was Apple, strawberry, whatever. It's not important, it's not mentioned to us on the plot. But rather they both were given the consequence of the sin from eating and disobeying God. So it's not that what a woman lures a man into evil, or that man is born into Original Sin, we do not believe in the concept of original sin. In fact, we believe Adam and Eve were created pure, and that every human being is cute, created purely and instinctively to believe in a God and Creator. We believe this is natural instinct. And as they grow up nature versus nurture, they're either

believe in the religion or their beliefs of their fathers or their grandfathers or their progeny or their environment, or they themselves choose to follow whatever they believe. But we believe instinctively a human beings created pure is not created with original sin. Then what happened in the ending of the story, when God,

outcasts, Adam and Eve, saying, did I not forbid you to approach that tree? Did I not warn you that Satan was your sworn enemy?

What did Adam do differently from Satan? Satan said, You created me from fire, you created him from clay, and I'm not going to do it.

Okay. Whereas Adams immediately said with Eve, our Lord, we have wronged our souls.

We have wronged our souls. If you do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will be lost.

And this is amazing. They knew that God sent a memo to the angels, and they found out that you're going to send us to earth and to them, when they found God's plan. What did they say? They didn't question God's plan and say, well, you already knew that. You already knew that I was gonna do this. So this is all your fault.

They didn't do that. Rather, they accepted God's divine plan and decreed and submitted themselves to the Divine Will of God and they said, We are the ones who wronged ourselves. You are the one who knows better. Now, going back to our example, does a president know better or an intern that just came

Like, what do you know? Did you even Graduate University?

Right? Or what about the the guy who promoted? Do you even know what's going on in the inner workings of the company. Similarly, now God has a higher similar to the obviously, God knows. And we do know, though, God knows. And we do not know the difference between Satan and Adam, is that Satan had what we call in psychology, and external focus or locus of control, meaning what they wanted, he wanted to blame everyone except himself, whereas Adam had an internal locus of control, and he took responsibility for what he had done. So when Adam received some words from his Lord, God accepted his repentance. And he sent him on Earth, for him to live for a while as enjoyment God says in the

Quran, and a place of livelihood. So this earth is not a punishment, fork for humanity. Like we're all miserable. Even though it's snowing, I love the snow, don't worry about it.

And I love the sheep in UK,

UK is very nice. Alright.

So don't be miserable. The earth is not intended for a place of misery.

Even though you may be sad, occasionally, it is not intended as a punishment for humanity. It is a transition to understand one's level and closeness to the Creator. Because if all of us were to be entered into heaven, at the same levels, based on simply the fact that we lived, this wouldn't be fair, somebody was more righteous than others, somebody gave charity to ether trust right here, right?

That you will give it all of us inshallah isn't really good stuff. Or somebody was more honest, somebody was more truthful, somebody was more trustworthy, somebody did not cheat and lie. Somebody did not commit adultery. Somebody was honest and loyal. How can that person have the same level as another person who simply just walked on the earth? And they were misery to humanity? How can one who commit to genocide be equal to the one who is one of the most purest and righteous of people? This is not fair. This is not just So God created this earth for us to be tested, to fulfill our purpose in existence, to understand that throughout our life, we're all struggling. We're all

struggling to come near to this creator and Lord, to understand our purpose in existence, and understand why he sent us here. So he sent us a revelation. This revelation is a means for you to rationally understand, that is from the Creator, for you to come to the conclusion that this is preserved. And it has been sent to us for us to fulfill our final purpose.

And final inshallah

we'll let the tractor pass.

In Final, some of the lessons that are taught to us from the story of Adam and Eve, is that number one, like we said, there's no such thing as original sin, man was simply created weak. And if he accepts his weakness in the strength of God, He will overcome his weakness. And when he indulges in his weakness, he will always fail. Or she will always feel man was created also out of hastiness.

And he does not have tranquility, in fact, the Arabic language, which is obviously one of the world's oldest languages, in general, and this is the reason why God chose the Arabic language to be the medium of Revelation, just like Aramaic was the medium of revelation for the, for the Bible of Jesus, but there's no more Aramaic, except a, a extension of it, in parts of

the Levant in Lebanon. And, and the original Hebrew language also has come to change. But Arabic language has been preserved. And this is why God sent it in the Arabic language in general. In the Arabic language, the word for human being is insane. And it has three roots, which are very powerful. One of them it comes from the Arabic root for forgetfulness, this young, so human beings are constantly in a change of forgetfulness. And it comes from the word, a word which comes from the zoo, which means constantly in motion, you can't sit still, like the fact you guys are standing still, I'm very impressed. Thank you, right? Because we're in the hustle like a YouTube generation.

Are we looking at their watches is done, you're ready. I'm just joking. But in any case, it comes from a constantly moving beam, and also comes from constant change. A human being cannot remain tranquil. That's why God said we have created human beings in haste with weakness. Secondly, we also emphasize this earth is not a punishment, you're not here to be punished. You're here to go through your trial and understand your purpose. And every one of us goes through their own existential journey. Who am I

And where am I going? This is what you need to understand as a human being.

You have to answer that question. Otherwise God says if you can't answer this question in the Quran, he says, You will live your entire life with absolutely no certainty, with no tranquility, with no ease and no peace. So God sent you a message. And maybe that message will come to you one of these days, for example, like on February 28, and Aston University, right. I don't say it right, in any case, but God said that he created this earth for a place of establishment and the livelihood and NIOSH, which means enjoyment. And secondly, or Thirdly, excuse me, God honored Adam. All of the children of Adam are honored and noble. God says what are called Khurana many other Mohamed Salah

homefield very well, well, what are the phenomena that will follow football now Malika cinnamon, memento locknuts of Lila we have honored the children of Adam, and carry them by land and sea we have provided sustenance for them, and favor them especially above many of those who have created every one of the children of Adam are honored and noble. So live honorably and noble is part of the the succession that God gave us. Fourthly, he gave success, a succession to human beings, meaning he favored us and he says, I have created for you, all that which is on the earth, meaning everything on the earth is for the livelihood of humanity, but that is with responsibility. Not that we destroy

the earth, and, and destroy the climate and destroy everything we can. But rather, it's a responsibility for us knowing that we are privileged, we are privileged and honored by God, that everything on earth is for our, for our use. Lastly,

the story between Adam and Satan. And you can see that the dichotomy of how they reacted was when people blame God, they in fact, they don't want to take personal responsibility. And what God sent this story for us to make people understand that when you blame God, you're being satanic. When you're being adamak, or in your true sense of true nature, you take responsibility for your old self. So your true destiny as a human being is to take responsibility is to take responsibility. And if you notice how Satan responded, he blamed someone else constantly. He is the one who's created from clay, and I'm the one who's created from fire.

He's created, but I'm better than him.

And therefore, I'm not going to bow down. I'm not going to listen to you. I have a question for you. Does this make sense?

It makes sense. Tell me why it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

Why is fire better than clay?

You have to heat clay. Right? What if I have a large amount of clay and throw it on the fire? And it turns the fire off?

Then clays greater does this make any sense? Yes. Tell me why.

You said Yeah. So you got to answer now.

Good.

It's not?

Who says this makes sense?

Does this make sense?

No, of course, it doesn't make sense. The reason why it doesn't make sense is because there's nothing better about fireclay. This is nonsensical, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

being different, and even being created differently does not make you intrinsically better than anyone. In fact, the first big it was Satan.

The first racist was Satan.

This is why it makes absolutely no sense. What was the source of his bigotry and racism? It was his arrogance. And that is why an arrogant person will never prosper because their arrogance will make them become the dumbest creation on planet Earth, or on heaven in heaven. And this is the lesson that God wants to learn. Why did humanity learn from this is that knowledge, which raised Satan all the way to the level of the angels, was not the same knowledge that Adam implemented. The difference in in, in what God wants us to understand is that knowledge is what's implemented in action, not information that's simply regurgitated. And that is why true knowledge in Islam is that which is

implemented. And if you don't implement your knowledge, you're just a philosopher. And philosophers don't get to paradise as they say. They say philosophers who only implement the knowledge they have will achieve the grace of God otherwise simply knowing is not going to give you any kind of benefit. This is the

This is the narrative that we believe to be the narrative that God sent to humanity.

And this is the Muslim narrative. We respect obviously you did you do a Christian tradition, the Christian tradition, as it as it is, and the Jewish tradition as it is. But as Muslims, we believe that there is only one tradition, the tradition that God sent to all of humanity. And as far as respecting our cohorts from other nations and the books that were revealed to them, we are enjoined and obligated to respect that. Why? Because we believe there was a Bible sent, there was a Torah sent, but we as Muslims believe it was corrupted by the hands of men. And that is why God sent the final revelation to the final prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them all in all of the messengers.

This is the Muslim edition, as you would say, of Adam and Eve. In Final, I recommend for you three books that I believe firmly and I'm two of them are here. So it's all good.

three books that I believe that everyone here should read. Number one is obviously the translation of the whole on

the one I recommend, and the one that's here is also amazing, is the translation by ma s. Abdel Halim Oxford press. So if you just type in Amazon Oxford press, hold on, you can get it you can also get it for free, but don't tell me when I tell you that it's free on the internet. There's also the second book I recommend is called in the footsteps of the Prophet. It's about the life of the Prophet Muhammad and who he was, and why he was the final messenger. And the last book I recommend for all of you, since we're talking about Muslim edition is a book called The Bible and the Quran, biblical personalities in the Islamic tradition.

The Bible in the Quran, biblical personalities and Islamic tradition just came out recently, if you want to look at the different narratives between Christianity and Islam, it's a really nice book to survey everything up I again thank all of you for first of all coming, enjoy the nice tea and cookies and cupcakes and all things that they have here inshallah, and I would like to thank again, Aston University or whatever way you say, right for hosting me. Thank you so much.