A Read from Iqbal's famous book Reconstruction of Religious Thoughts in Islam (1930)
The Quran omits the serpent and the rib-story altogether. The former omission is obviously meant to free the story from its phallic setting and its original suggestion of a pessimistic view of life. The latter omission is meant to suggest that the purpose of the Quranic narration is not historical, as in the case of the Old Testament, which gives us an account of the origin of the first human pair by way of a prelude to the history of Israel. Indeed, in the verses which deal with the origin of man as a living being, the Qur’an uses the words Bashar or Insan, not ÿdam, which it reserves for man in his capacity of God’s vicegerent on earth. The purpose of the Qur’an is further secured by the omission of proper names mentioned in the Biblical narration - Adam and Eve. The word Adam is retained and used more as a concept than as the name of a concrete human individual. The following verse is clear on the point: ‘We created you; then fashioned you; then said We to the angels, "prostrate yourself unto Adam" (7:11).
In the sense of the eternal abode of the righteous, Jannat is described by the Qur’an to be the place ‘wherein the righteous will pass to one another the cup which shall engender no light discourse, no motive to sin’. It is further described to be the place ‘wherein no weariness shall reach the righteous, nor forth from it shall they be cast’. In the second episode of the legend the garden is described as a place ‘where there is neither hunger, nor thirst, neither heat nor nakedness’. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the Jannat in the Quranic narration is the conception of a primitive state in which man is practically unrelated to his environment and consequently does not feel the sting of human wants, the birth of which alone marks the beginning of human culture.
Thus we see that the Quranic legend of the Fall has nothing to do with the first appearance of man on this planet. Its purpose is rather to indicate man’s rise from a primitive state of instinctive appetite to the conscious possession of a free self, capable of doubt and disobedience. The Fall does not mean any moral depravity; it is man’s transition from simple consciousness to the first flash of self-consciousness, a kind of waking from the dream of nature with a throb of personal causality in one’s own being. Nor does the Qur’an regard the earth as a torture-hall where an elementally wicked humanity is imprisoned for an original act of sin. Man’s first act of disobedience was also his first act of free choice; and that is why, according to the Quranic narration, Adam’s first transgression was forgiven.
The Quran omits the serpent and the rib-story altogether. The former omission is obviously meant to free the story from its phallic setting and its original suggestion of a pessimistic view of life. The latter omission is meant to suggest that the purpose of the Quranic narration is not historical, as in the case of the Old Testament, which gives us an account of the origin of the first human pair by way of a prelude to the history of Israel. Indeed, in the verses which deal with the origin of man as a living being, the Qur’an uses the words Bashar or Insan, not ÿdam, which it reserves for man in his capacity of God’s vicegerent on earth. The purpose of the Qur’an is further secured by the omission of proper names mentioned in the Biblical narration - Adam and Eve. The word Adam is retained and used more as a concept than as the name of a concrete human individual. The following verse is clear on the point: ‘We created you; then fashioned you; then said We to the angels, "prostrate yourself unto Adam" (7:11).
In the sense of the eternal abode of the righteous, Jannat is described by the Qur’an to be the place ‘wherein the righteous will pass to one another the cup which shall engender no light discourse, no motive to sin’. It is further described to be the place ‘wherein no weariness shall reach the righteous, nor forth from it shall they be cast’. In the second episode of the legend the garden is described as a place ‘where there is neither hunger, nor thirst, neither heat nor nakedness’. I am, therefore, inclined to think that the Jannat in the Quranic narration is the conception of a primitive state in which man is practically unrelated to his environment and consequently does not feel the sting of human wants, the birth of which alone marks the beginning of human culture.
Thus we see that the Quranic legend of the Fall has nothing to do with the first appearance of man on this planet. Its purpose is rather to indicate man’s rise from a primitive state of instinctive appetite to the conscious possession of a free self, capable of doubt and disobedience. The Fall does not mean any moral depravity; it is man’s transition from simple consciousness to the first flash of self-consciousness, a kind of waking from the dream of nature with a throb of personal causality in one’s own being. Nor does the Qur’an regard the earth as a torture-hall where an elementally wicked humanity is imprisoned for an original act of sin. Man’s first act of disobedience was also his first act of free choice; and that is why, according to the Quranic narration, Adam’s first transgression was forgiven.
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