9. The Rebellion of Iblees and the Reason Thereof

The Process of Creation
A Qur'anic Perspective

by Dr Israr Ahmad

9. The Rebellion of Iblees and the Reason Thereof

The mentioned seven places where Allah (swt) commanded the angels to bow down to Adam (pbuh), contain the assertion “except Iblees” followed by a number of slightly varying pseudo-explanations given by Satan himself. For example, we read in the verse 34 of Surah Al-Baqarah:

 “… they bowed down except Iblees; he refused and was haughty, he was one of those who reject Faith.”

Verse 61 of Surah Al-Isra contains a more explicit reason of Satan’s refusal to bow down to Adam (pbuh). It reads:

“…they bowed down except Iblees. He said: Shall I bow down to one whom Thou didst create from clay?”

A legitimate question arises here as to how a commandment of Allah (swt) addressed to the angels covered Azazeel who belonged to the created beings specified as jinns? The exegetes answer this question by opining that Allah’s order covered both angels and jinns but since angels were in majority, only they were addressed explicitly. Another reason already mentioned in this treatise was that Azazeel had joined the lower ranks of angels on account of his extraordinary, yet haughty, services and devotion to the Lord. On that account, he was bound to comply with the command of bowing down to Adam (pbuh). As mentioned earlier, the important question to be explored here is as to why Iblees refused to obey Allah’s commandment. The verse of Surah Al-Baqarah does not state any reason for the non-compliance. Verse 12 of Surah Al-A`raf however does give a reason for Satan’s disobedience:

“He said: I am better than he; Thou didst create me from fire and him from clay.” [7:12]

And in Surah Al-Hijr, we read:

“(Iblees) said: I am not one to prostrate myself to man, who Thou create from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape.”

Verse 12 of Surah Saad repeats verbatim the statement given in Surah Al-A`raf. The upshot of all the above  mentioned verses is that the real cause of Iblees’s refusal to obey Allah’s command was that, spiritually blinded, he was only aware of the animal/bodily part of Adam (pbuh) and, being made out of clay and mud, it certainly was inferior to jinns whose source or material of creation is fire --- a decidedly superior element to clay and mud. Being himself a creation of a`alam-e-khalq, he was quite familiar with the animal (physical) or apparently visible part of Adam (pbuh) (as it also pertained to the same a'alam-e-khalq), but he knew nothing about the sphere of amr (a`alam-e-amr) and, therefore, was quite in oblivion about the supreme dignity of the spiritual part of Adam (pbuh) --- his soul. And as already explained above, Allah’s “breathing into him of My spirit” made Adam (pbuh) the highest and noblest created being and only that justified his appointment as the Lord’s vicegerent and representative on earth. And it was on account of the spiritual soul --- the Divine spark in Adam (pbuh) --- that all the angels were commanded to prostrate and bow down before him.

In philosophical parlance, it can be said that Adam (pbuh) was an ontologically composite being --- consisting of an animal part which pertained to the realm of Khalq and a spiritual element or soul that belonged to the realm of Amr. And it is in this perspective that we can rightly understand verse 75 of Surah Sa`d in which Allah (swt) says that He created Adam (pbuh) with ‘His two hands’ (yadayya), insinuating the fact that Adam (pbuh) is a composite being of material/ physical body and a spiritual soul. The eminent Persian sage-poet Sadi has portrayed this very truth in a couplet which can be roughly translated as:

Man is a strange compound of substances. 

He has both an angelic part and a completely animal part.

Here the emphasis is on three points:

1.       The breathing of Allah’s spirit into man, i.e. the addition of substantial entity and faculty of metaphysical knowledge and will, which if rightly used, would give man superiority over other creatures.

2.      The origin of evil is arrogance and jealousy on the part of Satan who, spiritually blinded, saw only the lower side of man (the clay) and failed to see the higher side, his faculty brought in by the spirit of Allah.

3.      That evil only touches those who yield to it, and has no power over Allah’s sincere servants, purified by His grace.

The root cause of the contemporary godless, materialistic and satanic global civilization is the view that human beings are nothing but evolved animals. And this viewpoint has been given tremendous support and theoretical backing by Darwin’s evolutionary theory and its attendant social, moral and political implications. Just like Azazeel, modern civilization and mainstream dominant thought has also an eye only for the physical/material part of man, remaining in total oblivion of the metaphysical/spiritual component. This lopsided and one-eyed perception of the reality of man --- a consequence of scientism in contemporary epistemology --- has led to the present worldwide Dajjali (anti-christ driven) civilization. 

 

This materialistic philosophy has not remained confined to the academic circles and the intellegencia; rather it has trickled down to the common populace of both the West and the East. So much so that even a large majority of Muslim intellectuals and some leaders of Islamic revivalist movements also reject the view that the soul is a separate and ontologically distinct element of human beings. Renouncing the view of soul (presented above in detail) as a divine and spiritual ontological component of man, they identify the spirit or soul with earthly life alone, an essence of the realm of Al-khalq. And this, of course, is a highly misguided opinion, a travesty of truth, explicitly and unambiguously presented by the Qur`an. We can only regret this grave error committed by Muslim scholars and exegetes under the influence of materialistic and secularized Western scientistic thought. 

Source:  The Process of Creation

 to be continued  . . . .