Adam and Eve

Renaissance commentaries on Genesis discussed the extent of Adam and Eve’s initial perfection. 4 In Book 3 of Paradise Lost , the Father says that he created Adam and Eve ‘just and right’ ( PL 3.98). However, as Milton scholars have pointed out, the existence of a fall precludes absolute perfection, leading to the critical hypothesis that Adam and Eve possess a limited perfection, or what George Musacchio calls a ‘fallible perfection’. 5 Adam is told: ‘God made thee perfect, not immutable’ ( PL 5.524). He and Eve are perfect in that they possess free will to be obedient, but this also means that they are free to be disobedient. Adam and Eve’s sequential movement –

perfection-freedom-mutability – fits with Islamic belief that while Allah created humans perfectly, he made them free and therefore mutable. The fallibility that results from this mutability is an essential part of human nature, as indicated by two well-known Hadiths: ‘Every son of Adam is a sinner, and the best of those who sin are those who repent’; and ‘if you did not sin, Allah would do away with you and bring a people who do sin then seek Allah’s forgiveness, and He would forgive them’. 6

Aside from the emphasis on human repentance and divine mercy, these Hadiths show that perfection is not expected of humans. In fact, in general Arab culture, the word for ‘human’ – insān – denotes imperfection. Muhammad’s companion, Ibn-‛Abbās, has a famous saying in which he proposes that a human is called ‘ insān ’ because ‘he was entrusted but forgot’. 7 The word ‘ nasiya ’ [forgot] derives from the same etymological root as insān [human] and the two words possess a phonetic similarity. This idea of forgetting is linked directly with religio-cultural presentations of Adam, which stem from Islamic scripture. In one Hadith, prelapsarian Adam is shown his entire progeny and the number of years they each will live. He decides to give Dāwūd [David] forty of his own years, but when the Angel of Death comes to take Adam’s life, Adam protests that the angel is early, before being reminded of his gift to David, which he denies. The Hadith concludes: ‘Adam denied, so his progeny denied; he forgot, so his progeny forgot; and he erred, so his progeny erred’. 8 One Qur’anic verse has a similar theme: ‘And We made a covenant with Adam before, but he forgot, and We did not find in him [due] resolve’ ( Q 20.115). It is apparent, then, that Islam does not propagate the idea of an immutably perfect human and, moreover, that Adam is to some extent an exemplar of human fallibility. Such a view helps explain a basic moral of Adam and Eve’s story in Islam: ‘that the human, no matter how much dignity is given to him, has weakness in his nature’. 9

Muslims believe that despite these inescapable imperfections, humans remain among the most privileged creations. 10 One reason is that they are created impeccably by God: ‘We have certainly created the human in the best stature/form’ ( Q 95.4). Similarly, Milton’s human pair are described as having ‘excellent form’ ( PL 4.A). Enani utilises the Qur’anic description when translating how the Father ‘created all | Such to perfection’ ( PL 5.471-472), turning it into: ‘ fa laqad a‛ṭā kulla shay’in khalqah, | wa fī aḥsani ṣūratin rakkabah ’ [For he has given everything its form, | and in the best form assembled him] ( FM 5.471-472). Here, Enani makes allusions to two Qur’anic verses. The first is Moses’ reply to Pharaoh’s question of ‘Who then is your Lord?’ to which the answer is, ‘Our Lord is the One who gave everything its form and then guided it’ ( Q 20.49-50). The second is the Qur’an’s question, ‘O humankind, what has deluded you about your Lord, the All-Gracious, | the One who created you, fashioned you, and proportioned you? | In what a wondrous form has He willed to assemble you’ ( Q 82.6-8). Enani uses the exact phraseology of these verses in his translation, signifying that the Father has created the human pair in perfect form but reminding us of their

fallibility. The first Qur’anic verse in question shows that despite the perfection of human form, divine guidance is needed ultimately, while the second verses indicate that the human is unappreciative and will forget the bounty of form through arrogant disobedience.