2.19 Al-Baqarah: The Different Tests Given to the Angels, the Jinn, and Prophet Adam

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته!

All praise is due to Allah, the Most High, the Most Great. May blessings be upon our Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad ﷺ, and may Allah be pleased with all of the Companions.

Today we are sharing a topic: understanding the wisdom contained in the tests given to the angels, the jinn, and our forefather Adam (peace be upon him).

The Three Kinds of Created Beings and Their Tests

From the Qur’an, we can learn that the angels and the jinn were created before Adam (peace be upon him). The angels and the jinn are both beings of spirit, while Adam (peace be upon him) was a material creation formed by the union of body and soul. The Lord created Adam (peace be upon him), endowed him with a spirit from Him, and taught him the names of all things. Moreover, in His decree, the Lord appointed Adam (peace be upon him) and his descendants as vicegerents on earth, and so He commanded the angels to prostrate to Adam (peace be upon him). Although Iblīs did not belong to the ranks of the angels, but to the jinn, he too was commanded to prostrate to Adam (peace be upon him). Yet Iblīs did not prostrate, and he rebelled against the command of his Lord.

First, we can read that when the jinn faced their test, they rebelled against their Lord. In the time of trial, they did not pass, and ignoble traits were exposed. Adam’s situation is easier to understand. When the Lord made him and his wife dwell in Paradise and warned them that there was one tree they must not approach, they were tempted by الشيطان (al-shayṭān — Satan, the devil), and he and his wife approached that tree. In the time of trial, they too did not pass, and they disobeyed the command of the Lord.

How are we to understand that the angels also underwent a test? When the Lord informed the angels of His decreed favor regarding Adam (peace be upon him) and his descendants becoming vicegerents on earth, the angels said: “We glorify You above all imperfection and declare You pure, yet will You still place upon the earth those who do evil and shed blood?” The Lord of all the worlds said: “Indeed, I know what you do not know.” From this verse, we can read that only the Lord has full knowledge of the unseen. He is All-Knowing and All-Wise. Every decree is laid down by Him; He is the Lord of the decree. However excellent the angels may be, and although they dwell fully within the unseen and live in the realm of true reality, and although the creations of the unseen are administered by them, they are still ignorant of many matters within the decree. Because the mystery of the decree had not been fully unveiled to them, many doubts arose. So these three kinds of creation, these three kinds of beings with very lofty spirituality, all underwent tests. Even if the test given to the angels was not obvious, from this verse we can know that because the decree could not be fully disclosed to them, they too were under test.

Now I want to analyze the favors the Lord assigned to these three kinds of creation, and the essential content contained within their tests. First, let us begin with human beings, because understanding the human being is easier. The jinn are subtle beings, and the angels are even farther from human beings, since they are beings of spirit and are harder to understand. So let us begin with the human being.

Adam’s Test: Material Need and the Lawful and the Unlawful

Adam (peace be upon him) was made from clay and then had spirit breathed into him, becoming a human being of flesh. Because the body has needs, it must face the material world within creation. The Lord created material satisfactions to fulfill the body’s hunger and sexual desire. Since the first thing that must be satisfied for a human being to remain alive is hunger, and since without food the body would die and decay, the first test the Lord gave Adam (peace be upon him) was precisely in relation to this bodily need: the prohibition concerning what the body needed for sustenance—do not go near that tree; do not eat the forbidden fruit.

This prohibition is extremely important. Once human beings have the need to live, and once they begin to seek satisfaction in the material world, the first thing is food. To eat, where do they go to find it? They go into the material world to seek it. If they want water to drink, then within the world of wind, fire, water, and earth, and among vegetation, there is so much food, and animals too are food. So when human beings face the visible world, the material world, they will seek to uncover its mysteries and pursue what satisfies their needs.

Therefore, when a human being turns toward the created world, if there were no prohibition, and if he faced the created world purely according to what human nature needs, then he would forget the Creator. The Lord established a command concerning what is lawful and unlawful so that while human beings seek satisfaction, they never forget the Creator. With this standard of the lawful and the unlawful, this test not only prevents people from forgetting the reality of the Creator, but because human beings have desires, and because in pursuing satisfaction they often stop at nothing and pay no regard to what is lawful or unlawful, this test of lawful and unlawful means fixes firmly in the heart that the Lord is not only the True One, but also the Lord of the Day of Recompense. He is irresistible. He possesses sovereignty. He is fully aware and all-knowing. Any creature that does not submit to His will is lowly. Through this test, human beings not only know that He exists and offer praise, but also come to know that His majesty is beyond compare.

The standard of the lawful and the unlawful can heal the human nafsالنفس (al-nafs — the self, the lower self, human nature). Because human nature seeks satisfaction, it often commands itself to commit evil, and traits of wrongdoing and corruption emerge. But once there is this standard of the lawful and unlawful, then because a person must seek the satisfaction of hunger and must eat every day, at each moment he must remember this standard. And in remembering this standard of the lawful and unlawful, he also remembers the True God of all the worlds who established it.

Why is this so? Because if there were no standard of the lawful and the unlawful, human nature would do evil, and then the spiritual nature would not be pure, and the purity of the rūḥ الروح (al-rūḥ — the spirit), the spirit that the Lord has given to the human being, would not become manifest. It is precisely because the human being possesses the rūḥ that he can manifest, among the qualities of created beings, a holy quality. How are we to understand the holiness within the qualities of creation? The angel Jibrīl is called the holy spirit. He does not associate any partner with his Lord. Whether in bearing witness that his Lord’s very existence is One, or in relation to any command that belongs to the Lord, His will, His speech, His many attributes of beauty, or His beautiful names, he never associates anything with Him. This is the tranquil state of soul that human beings originally possessed, the testimony that should be expressed through the holy qualities of the spirit they were given.

So if a person had no standard of the lawful and the unlawful, and simply allowed human nature, the nafs, to develop freely, then even if his nafs, his self and ego, did not command him to evil, and even if he were restrained by social education, national education, the human cultivation of standards of good and evil, and the restraints of conscience and morality, he would still only pursue the fleeting favors of this world. He would not pursue the eternity required by the holy spiritual state after resurrection in the Hereafter. He would not seek the eternal return of life. Still less would he seek the qualities of the pure spiritual rūḥ that longs to behold the Lord after resurrection in the Hereafter.

This is the basic meaning we must understand in the test and trial that Adam (peace be upon him) first received in relation to food. Because human beings possess the nafs, with its strong material needs that require satisfaction every day, even if the standard of the lawful and the unlawful is remembered clearly, a person will often still violate it when he cannot restrain the incitement of his own desires, or when he is stirred by Satan. But when that happens, and the prohibition is violated, one must learn from Adam (peace be upon him) and immediately repent and seek forgiveness, so that the spiritual state may return to purity. For the Lord is the Lord who forgives. As we ask Him for forgiveness, we are also bearing witness that He alone possesses those attributes of beauty. Because we remember Him, He will forgive us.

The Jinn’s Test: Desire, Freedom, and Arrogance

Now let us read about the test given to the jinn. In the Qur’an, the Lord uses three different designations for the jinn. Sometimes He calls them jinn, sometimes Iblīs, and sometimes devils. When they are called devils, they are wholly in a state of having been cast away, and in a condition of wrongdoing and evil. When they are called Iblīs, this carries the meaning that Iblīs is arrogant, that he has forces under him that also do evil, and that he has a particular characteristic: he believes resurrection is real, yet he especially uses his devilish mode of thinking to mislead people and harm them. When they are called jinn, that is the general name for this class, just as humankind is the general name for human beings. The Lord also calls people “the children of Adam,” and He also calls them “human beings of flesh and blood.” Taken together, this is “humanity.” Likewise, the general name for that class is “the jinn.”

After Adam (peace be upon him) was created, the Lord commanded the angels to prostrate to him. When the refusal to prostrate is mentioned, it says that Iblīs did not prostrate. This is because the jinn have an important characteristic: since they were created from fire, and fire has a quality that is difficult to restrain, and because fire contains passion and a kind of force, Iblīs considered himself noble on account of these qualities. From this, we can read an important characteristic of the jinn: they demand freedom and dislike restraint.

Moreover, their desire for inward, spiritual satisfaction is very strong. Human beings possess the nafs and thus incline toward the material world, but because the jinn are spirit-beings and were created from fire, what they seek is the satisfaction of هوى (hawā — self-driven desire, caprice). In the realm of inward desire, they demand freedom. When inward desire seeks power, reputation, and glory, they demand that their nobility be fulfilled. So when he was tested, the Lord used the very characteristic contained within the jinn themselves—the strength of his هوى, the force of his inward desire—as the content of the test. Precisely because inward desire contains power, reputation, and freedom, the Lord commanded him to prostrate. But once he had to prostrate before a human being, where were his power, reputation, and glory to go? How could he then not be beneath this human? So he did not pass the test, and he rebelled against his Lord.

When he is called Iblīs, his selfhood is shown in full. Of course, among the jinn who were sent down to the earth, some restrained their unbounded desire to pursue power, reputation, and freedom. From Sūrat al-Jinn and Sūrat al-Aḥqāf, we can read that some jinn, after hearing the Qur’an, submitted, accepted guidance, and restrained their inward desires.

Among the jinn, all those who let their inward desires develop freely, and who possess an arrogant spiritual state, are collectively called “Iblīs.” Moreover, the class of Iblīs pursues falsehood and supports falsehood. The Lord knew that the jinn were created from fire and that their inward desire was strong, and so He tested them in this way. For what can truly satisfy their inward desire is to carry out the command that belongs to the Lord. His command issues from His speech. His speech contains the unveiling of the mysteries of all the worlds, and through His speech He gives commands. When He speaks concerning any created thing, there is the satisfaction of inward desire. Moreover, the Lord is the One who commands. The true possessor of sovereignty is the One who is free. If the jinn understood that by obeying the Lord’s command, the Lord would also cause them to become beings able to receive fulfillment and to issue commands, then, as we can read in Sūrat al-Jinn and Sūrat al-Aḥqāf, when they went forth to proclaim the truth, their inward desire was truly satisfied and fulfilled.

But Iblīs did not have that kind of understanding. He immediately submitted to his personal desire, which was not to prostrate. He displayed his arrogant form and became forever one of the abased and expelled.

The Angels’ Test: Knowledge and the Limits of Perception

Now let us read the world of the angels. This class of beings was created from light, and so they carry the qualities of light. Whatever is within light can be illuminated. They live in that realm of true reality, with no burden and no change of state or condition. From the revealed texts, we can read that the creatures of the unseen world are administered by the angels, and that the administration of the material world, such as governing mountains, governing water, and governing every created thing, is also carried out by the angels. Punishing those among humankind who do evil and rewarding those who do good is likewise brought about through the angels. This is a favor that belongs to the angels through the quality of illumination.

Yet precisely because the angels live entirely in that bright and transparent realm of true reality, they are unable to know the dark world. If something is dark, how are they to know it? Human beings, however, can. Let us take an example: if a person is blind, he can still touch, smell, and sense. At that point there is an experiential world, and human beings can possess this favor. The angels, dwelling in a world of complete clarity, understand the realm of true reality; but when it comes to the dark world, which must be known through experience and sensation, they find that they cannot know it.

So when the Lord said that the vicegerent He would place on earth was man, a being of clay, this clay is dark. The material world veils the realm of true reality. Thus the Lord said that the one He would place upon the earth, together with his descendants, as vicegerents, was this human being. At once the angels were perplexed. The angels, because they dwell in the realm of true reality, asked: “We glorify You above all imperfection, declare You pure, and declare You holy, and yet You still wish to create man?” They asked this question, and the Lord said: “I know what you do not know.” The meaning is that He had not created in them an experiential form of perception—smell, touch, and the like. Without these, one cannot, from within the dark world, know the Lord, nor turn the dark world into a sign that gives praise and gratitude and knows that there is a Creator.

Our Lord said that the vicegerent He would place on earth was man—Adam (peace be upon him) and his descendants. At that point the angels were puzzled. Because the angels dwell in the realm of true reality, and because the registers of decree are under their charge, they also knew that among the descendants of humanity there would be those who do evil on earth, and that bloodshed would occur. How, then, could such a being be made the vicegerent of the earth? What they did not know was that the human world was created with a form of perception. In this dark material world, the human being himself is a dark bodily being. He must uncover the mysteries of the dark material world in order to satisfy his needs, and while uncovering those mysteries, he gives praise, declaring the Lord pure, transcendent, and holy.

The test and trial faced by the angels lay precisely in their mode of thinking. They are beings of pure rational thought. They are limited when it comes to reflexive thought produced through experience, and in emotional thought as well. So when the Lord said that in this dark world on earth He would establish a vicegerent, they could not think in a complete way. Only when human beings combine emotional thought, reflective thought, and rational thought in a complete way can they truly, through the inner content of thought, praise the Lord. For example, to declare Him pure, transcendent, and holy—these are all states of thought that must be fulfilled.

So even though the angels dwell in the realm of true reality and possess the favor of knowing decree—for example, they knew that among the descendants of Adam (peace be upon him) there would be those who do evil on earth and that bloodshed would happen, and they knew some of the mysteries of the decree—they were still in a limited state of thought. Therefore, for them, many, many matters of decree still remained a mystery, and they could not fully be at peace with them. That is why such doubts arose, and that is why they asked the Lord. Then the Lord told them that He knows what they do not know. Only this Creator, this True God of all the worlds—Allah, the Most High and Most Great—is All-Knowing and All-Wise.

The Wisdom Behind the Different Tests

The Lord tested these three kinds of creation in different ways. He created them, and He knows how to test these creatures of His. He tested the angels through knowledge, for He alone is All-Knowing, All-Wise, and Most Wise. He tested the jinn through the content of inward desire. Our Lord alone possesses sovereignty. He alone is the One who is free and not constrained, the One upon whom no burden is placed, the One who is completely free, because He is Powerful and All-Powerful. He tested human beings through their material needs, because He alone is All-Good and Perfect in goodness.

So whenever a human being restrains his human nature and does good, he is bearing witness to Him, because He has given human beings the ability to do good and to seek favor. He gave people the standard of the lawful and the unlawful to restrain human nature, so that human nature may seek the good of both this world and the next, and bear witness that He is the Lord who is Universally Merciful, Especially Merciful, and Perfectly Good. For all creation is His sign. He created these beings, and He knows how to test them, so that every kind of creature, through worshipping Him and through not associating any partner with Him, may bear witness and become one of His signs, making manifest every beautiful attribute that belongs to Him.

From these tests, we must read these inner meanings. Only then can we offer true praise, declaring Him transcendent, supreme, and holy. Especially through these tests, His creatures are brought to bear witness: glorifying Him as the One alone worthy of worship, with no partner, and affirming that He alone is the Allah of all the worlds.

That is all for today’s sharing. If anything was spoken in error or explained unclearly, we ask Allah, the Most High and Most Great, to forgive us. Dear readers, please pardon us. Thank you all for sharing.

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته!

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