Creation

We are clearly part of something other than ourselves,

part of the surroundings that we call Creation,

yet somehow we feel different from it.

And it was here a long time before anyone like us was around,

so how did we get here?

Where did we come from?

and what makes us different from what was there before?

In the story of Adam all these questions are considered,

and in the Qur'an it is told in different ways

in five different Suras.

The story of Adam in the Qur'an

is not one based on a simple scientific understanding of the growth and transformation of species,

but a description of the truth that underlies

whatever approaches we may take

to our understanding of history or science.

There is a truth to humanity's creation

that lies beneath what we can physically prove about who we are

and how we got here,

and that truth is the story of the Creation of Adam, and the Fall.

So, trying to understand that story

the way that we see things today,

in the light of our current scientific understandings,

we have to drill down through the science

to see the truth,

but for that

we really have to consider what we mean by what we say,

right down to the meaning of the words.

We need to consider what we mean by words like 'Adam' and 'clay'.

Now science will never be able to point to a first man,

though they do seem prepared to point to a genetic Eve,

but the name Eve is not mentioned in the Qur'an,

it simply says that the male and female were created from one soul,

so perhaps better to see the name Adam as an inclusive term

for Adam, Eve, and all humanity.

The Qur'an says that Abraham was a people,

so perhaps Adam can be understood the same way,

after all, the children of Adam can only exist

through male and female co-existence.

And what do we mean by the 'clay' from which Adam was made?

Clay is formed from the very finest particles of earth,

which when mixed with water become a pliable solid that can be given shape.

In the case of crockery, that water is baked out,

whereas humans are almost all water,

making them a fine receptacle for the breath of life.

And human liquid can become solid,

as when their blood clots,

the process by which humankind was created.

So what about evolution?

Is it not recognised that we come from a line of monkeys, the primates?

Not at all.

The monkeys came from our line.

The other primates are the branches off from the main stem that is humanity.

But did we not come from tiny things,

from the sea to the land,

and finally to primate us?

Why not?

We may think that Creation should only take the blink of an eye,

but the whole history of life on earth is no more than the blink of an eye to its Creator.

What is it that makes humankind

different from other primates and the rest of life that surrounds us?

When God taught Adam the Names,

Adam needed in some way to share those Divine qualities to understand them.

It was that breath of God in Adam

to which the angels bowed.

By means of the Beautiful Names

the Unity of God can be expressed through the duality of existence,

seeing Creation as other than Oneness,

and along with other opposites

comes good and bad, right and wrong, and moral choices.

So Adam lived in the Garden of Paradise,

a place of life and growth, and comfort,

and whatever could be desired.

Apart from one thing, of course.

They had to stay away from one plant,

which Christians tend to describe as an apple tree,

whereas muslims usually think of it as grain,

but in the choice of disobedience

it could be said to be

a growth of arrogance,

selfishness, and self-harm.

In choosing what is wrong we discovered shame

and began trying to hide our animal bodies,

the differences that display our creation as pairs,

division rather than unity.

Now in the story we also learn the story of Iblis,

the personal individual name of a being with an infinite number of faces,

that we know as Shaitan,

who whispers temptation towards evil

in the hearts and minds of humanity.

And Iblis tempted Adam, and Adam chose to disobey,

and with that came the Fall.

But where did they fall to?

Was it to an already existent Pre-Fall creation?

Adam fell into this world,

the Dunya,

which shows itself to us in different ways.

We search our planet

and the skies above us

for clues about the nature of our surroundings

and the purpose of our existence,

and we gaze in awe and wonder.

But compared to other life forms like the dinosaurs,

humanity has only lived on the planet a brief amount of time,

and compared to the age of the universe,

the human lifespan is so short

as to be virtually negligible.

We may be living on one of a cluster of planets

circling a star at the edge of one galaxy

at the edge of one universe of innumerable galaxies,

but we are truly at the centre of the universe of perception,

a creation that

as far as we can see goes on for ever,

It is a creation that by its scale can never be fully understood.

Any theory of everything,

a physicists holy grail,

will inevitably never be anything but a theory,

looking at the stars, and the atoms,

the past and the present,

searching for understanding.

And how should we relate to this world

into which we have fallen?

Well,

we are told that Adam took on the responsibility for its care,

the children of Adam having been offered a responsibility

that the mountains had seen fit ro refuse,

but that humanity was self-assured, or arrogant enough

to accept when it was offered.

And so it is that we are required

to accept ecological responsibility,

to care for nature, not just ourselves,

to care for other forms of life

not just ourselves.

Caring for the creation is also caring for ourselves.