Having been brought up as a Christian and then having embraced Islam as an adult I learned that there were two different versions to the story of Adam and Eve. Each version speaks of Adam and Eve as being the original humans. But the description of the Fall from God’s grace is told differently.
The Christian version I was exposed to spoke of the Fall of Adam and Eve as having come about by Eve having been tempted by the devil (in the form of a snake) to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. She, in turn, procured Adam to eat of the “apple.” (Unanswered question: God apparently had told Adam that he would surely die if he ate from the tree and yet Adam willy nilly partakes of the forbidden fruit.] At that point, they became aware of their nakedness (Second unanswered question: Eve apparently only becomes aware of her nakedness after Adam ate of the fruit, even though she had already eaten of the fruit).
God, reacting very much like an angry father in the Bible/Torah version, curses his children and expels them from the garden of Paradise. From that day forward, according to Christian theology, all humanity bears the stain of Original Sin. Unfortunately, my teachers took things further, inferring that I, as a woman, by virtue of inhabiting the sex of the original mother, Eve, carried the burden of that original sin. It is me and all my sisters that will lure man into sin and deception. In other words, this story was used by the patriarchy to brand women as she-devils down through the centuries.
There are similarities to the story of Adam and Eve in both the version found in the Old Testament/Torah and the versions in the Qur’an. (The story of the Fall gets repeated four times with variations throughout the Qur’an.) However, none of the variations place the blame of the Fall on Eve and there is no mention of Original Sin.
In fact, much of the story of Adam and Eve centers around Iblis, the fallen angel, who, out of pride, would not bow to God’s new creation. The Qur’an presents the story of the Fall based on a broader storyline in which all of this comes about because Iblis (by any other name: Satan, Shaytan, the whisperer, the devil)when ordered by the Almighty to prostrate before His new creation, won’t because he believes that he is better than Adam. It is he that God orders banished. Iblis asks God for a reprieve until the Day of Judgment, which God grants him. As a thank you, he tells God that he will turn most of these lesser beings away from God and by proof, immediately does so with Adam and Eve.
“And when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam, they [all] prostrated except Iblis. He refused through pride and [so] became one of those who cover up [the Truth].
And We said, ‘Oh Adam dwell — you and your wife— in the Garden and eat freely from it — both of you — but do not come near to this tree, lest you become one of the oppressors [of yourself and others.]’
But Shaytan caused them to slide and so brought them out of [the place] they had been in. And We said, ‘Get down each of you [human and Shaytan] an enemy to the other. And the earth shall be your dwelling place and pleasure for a time.’
Then Adam received from his Lord words [of guidance], and He turned to him [with mercy] Truly He is the Oft-Turning, the Singularly Compassionate.
[For although] We said, ‘Get down [from this state] yet shall there come to you Guidance from Me, and as for this who follow my Guidance, neither shall they fear nor shall they grieve.’ “
According to Qur’an, this is all part of God’s plan: For, no single thing exists that does not have its source with us. And naught do We bestow from on high unless it be in accordance with a measure well-defined.
Why is it part of God’s plan? Maybe God was bored. What better way to keep entertained than to create human beings, give them a choice to do good or bad, mix in some rational knowledge with a whole lot of emotions and voila! A cosmic soap opera.
I am, of course, being facetious. But, in fact, my claim is not that far off from some of the claims made by learned men over the centuries when trying to explain why God would have men sin.
In her article entitled The Immortal Myth of Adam and Eve, Dr. Shawna Dolansky asks questions that were asked in previous centuries with regard to the discrepancies that existed between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
“Why did Gen. 1 state that man and woman were created together, and Gen. 2 pictured the creation of each separately? In the Middle Ages, the rabbis came up with a fascinating answer to all of these questions by making use of an old ancient near eastern tradition about a kind of female demon, in Akkadian Lamashtu, but in the Persian period, called a ‘Lilith’.”
Dr. Dolansky goes on to share how this is explained in a third century Midrash (an ancient commentary on a part of the Hebrew scriptures, attached to the biblical text).
“The Alphabet of Ben Sira… explains the origin of this demon. She was actually Adam’s first wife (from Genesis chapter 1) before God created Eve (in Genesis chapter 2). The Midrashic origin of this interpretation seems simple. Genesis 1:27 says that God created man and woman together, whereas Genesis 2:18 has Adam alone; where did his wife go?
“The Midrash answers that she ran away from Adam because the two of them were always fighting, specifically about which one should be on top during intercourse:
” …[A]t the time when the Holy One, blessed by he, created the world, he created first man, and when he saw that [this man] was alone he immediately created another woman from the earth like him, and he called her Lilith, and he brought her to Adam. Immediately, the two of them began a quarrel. He said: “You will lay on the bottom.” She said, “You will lay on the bottom since we are both equals since we were both made from the earth.” They would not allow each other to be heard. Once Lilith saw this, she uttered the special name of God, flew off into the air, and escaped…
Since, being equal, they could not live together, God created the more submissive Eve from Adam’s rib (or side) to replace his lost first wife. This also explains why liliths are so aggressive against babies, the descendants of Lilith’s rival, Eve, and why they enjoy seducing poor innocent men while they are sleeping alone.”
Clearly, to us now, these interpretations are rather limiting and colored by a certain prejudicial outlook based on limited knowledge. But they were taken as valid interpretations of a text deemed the word of God. Over the course of time, with more input from “knowledgeable representatives,” the interpretations became solidified and canonized, which is why the story, as we see it today, has been in place for five centuries, at least.
What about the whole concept of Original Sin? The concept of Original Sin connecting to the story of Adam and Eve is introduced in the New Testament epistles, and the belief that Jesus was brought into the world to redeem mankind of that original sin, or indeed the human condition of sinfulness, which we have all been born into.
The Qur’an, on its part, states that mankind is born in submission, Islam, and a pure state, fitr. It is our time on earth that will determine which direction we will take with the choices that we make.
Dr. Dolansky, in her article The Immortal Myth of Adam and Eve, states that:
“The doctrine of original sin was first developed in the 2nd-century by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons. Irenaeus believed that Adam’s sin had grave consequences for humanity, that it is the source of human sinfulness, mortality, and enslavement to sin, and that all human beings participate in his sin and share his guilt.
“Augustine [of Hippo] took his argument further, arguing that Adam’s sin is transmitted by concupiscence, or “hurtful desire,” resulting in humanity becoming a Massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with a much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will.
“By the time of Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, the story of Adam and Eve had become the story of a Fall from Grace that could only be redeemed with the coming of Jesus. It was the tale of the Devil working through the woman to bring down the man and all humanity, and to taint us all with Original Sin.
Clearly, the patriarchal tendencies of the cultures and societies were at work in trying to explain man’s tendency towards sin through the weakness of women. While many Christians have much more nuanced and enlightened views on the doctrine, there will always be some who will always seek to scapegoat. This is true of almost any religious tradition, and especially those that have developed in patriarchal societies.
The fact is there is much we do not know of God’s creation, and maybe there are certain things that are not for us to know. The Qur’an tells us that there will always be mysteries that cannot be explained and that it is not up to us to try and decipher them. Personally, I prefer the Qur’anic version of the Story of Adam and Eve.
Appendix
THE HOLY BIBLE’S VERSION OF ADAM AND EVE AND THEIR FALL
GEN.1:26-28: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Adam And Eve
2:8-10:. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed, and the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden…
2:15-25: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all of the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So, the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam, no suitable here was found. So, the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh
She shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.
For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
The man and wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
The Fall of Man
Gen 3: 1-20
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves,
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God, and he was walking in the gaffer in the cool of the day and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden, but the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
And he said: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “the woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals, You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.”
To the woman He said,
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.”
To Adam, He said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘you must not eat of it’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living.
THE HOLY QUR’AN’S VERSIONS OF ADAM AND EVE AND THEIR FALL:
Surah 2: 830-38
And when your Lord said to the angels, “I shall place upon the earth an emissary,” they said, “Will you place upon it [one] who will corrupt it and shed blood, [while] it is we who hymn your praise and sanctify You?” He said, “Truly, I know what you know not.”
And He taught Adam the Names — all of them, and then made them visible before the angels and said, “Tell me the names of these if you are truthful.”
They said, “Glory be to You. We have no knowledge other than what You have taught us. Truly You are the all-Knowing, the All-Wise.”
He said, “Oh, Adam, tell them their names.” And when he had told them their names, He said, “Did I not tell you that I alone know the unseen [Reality] of the heavens and the earth? And [that] I know what you reveal and what you conceal?”
And when We said to the angels, “Prostrate before Adam, they [all] prostrated except Iblis. He refused through pride and [so] became one of those who cover up [the Truth].
And We said, “Oh Adam dwell — you and your wife— in the Garden and eat freely from it — both of you — but do not come near to this tree, lest you become one of the oppressors [of yourself and others.]
But Shaytan caused them to slide and so brought them out of [the place] they had been in. And We said, “Get down each of you [human and Shaytan] an enemy to the other. And the earth shall be your dwelling place and pleasure for a time.”
Then Adam received from his Lord words [of guidance], and He turned to him [with mercy]. Truly He is the Oft-Turning, the Singularly Compassionate.
[For although] We said, “Get down [from this state] yet shall there come to you Guidance from Me, and as for those who follow my Guidance, neither shall they fear nor shall they grieve.”
Surah 7: 15-18
[Allah] said, “Surely, you are among the reprieved.”
[Iblis] said, “Now that You have caused me to err, I shall lie in ambush for them along Your Straight Path.
“Then I shall fall upon them from before them and behind them and upon their right and upon their left, and You will not find most of them to be grateful,”
[Allah} said, “Get out — disgraced and disowned. “And as for those who follow you —surely I shall fill Hell with the lot of you,
Surah 7: 19-28:
“And oh, Adam! Dwell here — you and your wife — in the Garden and eat — both of you — from whatever you want, but do not come near to this tree, or you two will be [counted] among the oppressors [of yourself and others].”
So, the Shaytan whispered to the two of them to make them conscious of their nakedness (which had been hidden from them), and he said: “Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you two become angels or lest you to be among those who live forever!”
And he swore to the two of them, “Truly, I am a sincere advisor to you.”
And thus, did he lead them on by deception. And when they had tasted of the tree, their sexual organs became apparent to them, and they began to cover themselves with the leaves of the garden. And their Lord called to them, “Did I not forbid you [to eat] from that tree and tell you that Shaytan was your obvious enemy?”
They said, “Our Lord! We have oppressed ourselves. If you do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, surely we will be of the lost.”
[Allah} said, “Get down [from this state of innocence and be], each of you [Shaytan and human], an enemy to the other, having on earth, your dwelling and pleasure for a while.
There shall you live, and there shall you die and from out of it, you shall be brought forth.”
Surah 15: 16 -27
And, indeed, we have set up in the heavens great constellations and endowed them with beauty for all to behold; and we have made them secure against every satanic force accursed. So that anyone who seeks to learn [the unknowable] by stealth is pursued by a flame clear to see.
And the earth — we have spread it out wide and placed on it mountains firm, and caused [life] of every kind to grow on it in a balanced manner and provided thereon means of livelihood for you [O men] as well as for all living beings whose sustenance does not depend on you.
For, no single thing exists that does not have its source with us. And naught do We bestow from on high unless it be in accordance with a measure well-defined. [author’s emphasis]
And we let loose the winds to fertilize [plants], and We send down water from the skies and let you drink thereof: and it is not you who dispose of its source — for behold, it is We — We alone — who grant life and deal death, and it is We alone who shall remain after all else will have passed away!
And well do We know [the hearts and deeds of all human beings —both] those who lived before you and those who will come after you. And behold, it is thy sustainer who will gather them all together [on Judgment Day]. Verily, He is wise, all-knowing.
And indeed, we have created man out of sounding clay, out of dark slime transmuted whereas the invisible beings We had created [long] before them out of the fire of scorching winds.
Surah 17: 60-65
And [remember] when We said to you, “Surely your Lord has encompassed the people”? We did not make the true dream (ru’ya) which We showed you except as a trial for the people and [in the same way] the accursed tree [mentioned in the Qur’an]. We warn them but it does nothing except increase them in their great transgression.
And [remember] when We said to the angels, “Prostrate to Adam!” And so, they [all] prostrated except Iblis. He said, “Shall I prostrate before that which You created from clay?”
Iblis said, “Do You see this one whom You have honored above me? If You give me respite until the Day of Standing [for judgment], I will seize his offspring, save for a few.”
[Allah} said, “Go [on the path you have chosen], but for those of them who follow you. Surely Jahannam shall be your reward – an ample reward.
And incite whomever you can from among then with your voice, and assault them with your horses and men, and become a partner in their children and their wealth and promise them [whatever you will]. And the promises of Shaytan are nothing but delusions.
Truly, you shall have no authority over My worshipful slaves. And sufficient is your Lord as a Guardian.”
Surah 20: 115-124:
And indeed, long ago We covenanted with Adam, but he forgot, and We did not find constancy in him.
And when We told the angels, “Prostrate before Adam,” they prostrated [all] except Iblis — He refused.
So We said, “Oh, Adam! Truly thesis an enemy to you and to your wife, so do not allow him to drive both of you from the Garden and [into] misery.
Truly within it, there is neither hunger nor [the sense of] nakedness — neither suffering from thirst therein nor exposure to the heat of the sun.”
But Shaytan whispered to him, saying, “Oh Adam, shall I lead you to the Tree of Eternal Life and a Kingdom that will never decay?”
And so, they ate from it, and thus became conscious of their nakedness and [sought] to piece together leaves from the garden to cover themselves; and [thus] Adam disobeyed his Lord and [thus they were] seduced.
Then his Lord chose him, relented towards him, and guided him.
[Allah] said, “Get out of here, all of you, enemies to one another. And when Guidance comes to you from Me, then whoever follows [My} guidance shall neither go astray nor [be] miserable.”
And lo! Thy Sustainer said unto the angels: “Behold, I am about to create mortal man out of sound clay, out of dark slime transmuted; and when I have formed him fully and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him in prostration!”
Thereupon the angels prostrated themselves, all of them together, save Iblis: he refused to be among those who prostrated themselves.
Said He, “O Iblis: What is thy reason for not being among those who have prostrated themselves?”
Iblis replied: “It is not for me to prostrate myself before mortal man whom Thou hast created out of sounding clay, out of dark slime transmuted!”
Said He: “Go forth, then from this [angelic state]: for, behold, thou art [henceforth] accursed, and [My rejection shall be thy due until the Day of Judgment!”
Said [Iblis} “Then, O my Sustainer, grant me a respite till the Day when all shall be raised from the dead!”
Answered He: “Verily, so be it: thou shalt be among those who are granted respite till the Day the time whereof is known [to Me alone]”.
Author’s Note: I have put the chapters of the Qur’an that refer to Adam and Eve and the Fall in the order that they appeared in the Qur’an, but quite honestly, I do not know whether this order is necessary.
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- Surah 15:16-27. The ajwidi Qur’an translated and transliterated by A. Nooruddeen Durkee
- Surah 15:21. The Message of the Qur’an translated and explained by Muhammad Asad
- Https://thetorah.com/the-immortal-myth-of-adam-and-eve/
- Holy Bible, Old Testament/Torah: New International Version 1986