In a recent online session, a listener asked scholar Nouman Ali Khan why, after the creation of humankind, God commanded the angels to prostrate only before Adam (peace be upon him), and not before Eve (peace be upon her).
Nouman Ali Khan responded:
God decreed that He would create the first soul and breathe it into Adam. That first body was created as a model of one of the Creator’s great acts of creation — an extraordinary union of matter and spirit.
In my view, this event isn’t simply that the angels were told to prostrate before Adam specifically — rather, the prostration was directed toward the miraculous act of creation that was manifested through him. This mirrors the pattern of prostration described in the Quran in relation to miraculous signs.
Through this prostration, all of humanity was honored. Adam was the first human — but he was not simply the first man. Adam, Eve, and all their descendants after them were honored through this single event.
Today’s tendency to pit the honor of women against that of men, or to judge the Quran through a gender-based lens, largely stems from a kind of modern insecurity. The Quran doesn’t indulge this mindset — rather, it presents the truth exactly as it occurred.
The Quran, in fact, removes the historical stigma placed on women, including Eve. The Bible states that Eve tempted Adam into eating the forbidden fruit, and that this is why humanity came to exist on earth. But the Quran clearly places the blame for this act equally on both of them — or, in certain places, places the blame solely on Adam.
When we think about Iblis, a question arises: how could someone, even while in direct proximity to God, display such arrogance and disobedience? While we ordinary people tremble with awe at the mere thought of His majesty, how did Iblis muster such audacity? Had he lost his sense of fear or reverence for God?
The answer lies deep in Iblis’s psychology. Iblis held a certain pride in himself. He considered himself distinct from and superior to the angels and jinn.
When Adam was granted special status, Iblis saw that, for the first time, someone other than an angel was being given such honor. He felt his own uniqueness was gone — that he no longer held a singularly elevated status above everyone else.
Although his rank was not stripped from him, nor was he immediately expelled from God’s presence, he still could not stop himself from comparing himself to Adam. His need to preserve his imagined superiority and pride grew so overpowering within him that even God’s command became secondary to him.
Arrogance can blind a person so thoroughly that it obscures the truth. And since one of God’s names is “Al-Haqq,” the Absolute Truth, failing to see the truth is, in effect, a form of denying God Himself. Throughout the ages, many people are seen who, despite knowing the clear truth, refuse to acknowledge their error — instead insisting, with a smile, that their wrongdoing was correct. Iblis has succeeded in spreading this same arrogance and blindness among humankind.
Many believe that in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), everyone came to believe simply by hearing the Quran, owing to the ease of understanding Arabic at the time. But the reality is that those same Arabs, upon hearing the Quran, did not accept Islam — many instead became even more fierce enemies. The hypocrites of that era, who were far more proficient in Arabic than we are today, also conspired against the Quran.
The Quran, therefore, does not expect mastery of the Arabic language from everyone. What it does expect is that people remain connected to this divine word to the best of their ability.
God Almighty has, across generations, kept this message accessible and reachable to people through those who believe in it. Those with less knowledge will learn from those with more — in this way, everyone, from their own position, remains part of an ongoing journey to understand God’s word. Because there is no final limit to attaining proficiency in God’s word — everyone is a traveler on this journey of knowledge.
Source: Nouman Ali Khan’s official YouTube channel.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report