3 Accompanying Ramadan Day 2

3. Adam and the Fall

Bible

God has given a commandment not to eat of the tree in the middle of the Garden. Eve is tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit; she then gives it to her husband. Consequently they become afraid of God and hide from him. “God expelled him [the man, and his wife] from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken. He banished the man.” (Gen. 3:23-24). He had already told him, on account of his disobedience:

        Accursed be the soil because of you.

        With suffering you shall get your food from it

        every day of your life.

        It shall yield you brambles and thistles,

        and you shall eat wild plants.

        With sweat on your brow

        shall you eat your bread,

        until you return to the soil.

        as you were taken from it.

        For dust you are

        and to dust shall you return.  (Gen. 3:17-19)

Qur’an

We said, “Adam, live with your wife in this garden. Both of you eat freely there as you will, but do not go near this tree, or you will both become wrongdoers.” But Satan made them slip, and removed them from the state they were in. We said, “Get out, all of you! You are each other’s enemy. On earth you will have a place to stay and livelihood for a time.” Then Adam received some words from his Lord and He accepted his repentance. He is the Ever Relenting, the Most Merciful (Q 2:35-37).

With regard to the tree, the text does not give any precision other than ‘this”. Yusuf Ali says it was the “tree of Evil, which he [Adam] was forbidden not only to eat of, but even to approach.”

Adam receives “some words” from the Lord; “Words teaching Adam how to repent” says the translator in a note. So the sin of Adam is personal; there is no idea of Original Sin in Islam.

The story of the Fall is told again in Q 7:20-25. Satan says that he will lie in wait for human beings from in front of them and from behind, from the left and from the right. He whispers to them (the Qur’an does not say first to Eve) tempting them to disobey God – the last sura portrays Satan as “the slinking whisperer people who whispers into the hearts of people” (Q 114:4-5)