Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1984).
Adam and Eve ancestral parents of all human
beings according to Islamic belief
Muslim understandings of Adam and Eve, the
first human beings, are based on the qUran, the
hadith, and other religious texts. Muslims also
regard Adam as the first of a series of prophets
that ends with mUhammad. Biblical and later Jew-
ish and Christian stories about Adam and Eve
were already familiar to arab peoples at the time
Islam began in the seventh century, and these
stories continued to develop in their new Arabic-
Islamic setting thereafter.
According to the Quran, God created Adam
from clay (Q 7:12) and gave him life by filling
him with his spirit (ruh, Q 15:29). God appointed
him to be his deputy (caliph) on Earth, to which
the angels objected because of their fear that he
would cause trouble and bloodshed (Q 2:30). God
had Adam prove his superiority to them by teach-
ing him the names of everything (Q 2:30–32).
The angels finally bowed down to Adam, except
sata n, whom God expelled from heaven for his
disobedience (Q 2:34, 7:11–18). The Quran does
not mention Eve (Hawwa) by name, but it does
talk about Adam’s “wife” (Q 20:117). She was
created from Adam (Muslim commentators say
from his rib), and they lived blissfully together in
paradise, where they were allowed to eat whatever
they wished except from the tree of immortality
(Q 7:189, 2:35, 20:120). Muslim commentators
speculate that this may have been a fig tree, a grape
vine, or even wheat. Both Adam and Eve violated
God’s taboo after being misled by Satan (not a ser-
pent), thus committing the first sin. For punish-
ment, they were expelled from paradise and sent
down to Earth, where they and their descendants
were to live, die, and be resurrected (Q 7:20–25,
20:121–123, 2:36). Despite this punishment, Mus-
lims do not hold to a doctrine of original sin,
which many Christian denominations in the West
believe humans have inherited from Adam and
Eve. Rather, Islamic tradition holds that God for-
gave Adam, allowing him to repent and providing
him guidance toward salvation (Q 2:37–38).
After the Fall, according to Islamic tradition,
Adam landed on Mount Nawdh in India (or Sri
Lanka), where he initiated the first crafts; Eve
landed in Jidda, Arabia. Some say that the city of
Jidda, which means “grandmother,” was actually
named in memory of Eve. Adam and his wife were
reunited when the angel gabriel brought Adam to
mecca for the first time to perform the haJJ. As in
the Bible, Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, and Cain
later murdered his brother out of jealousy because
God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and not his own
(Q 5:27–32). Legendary accounts say that Adam
and Eve gave birth to 20 sets of girl-boy twins,
from which all the world’s peoples are descended.
According to Shii tradition, Adam and Eve were
given a premonition of the martyrdom of their
descendant hUsayn ibn ali (d. 680), the prophet
Muhammad’s grandson, and they were the first to
express grief on his behalf. Sufis and others, on the
other hand, have looked to when, prior to their
existence, the children of Adam were brought forth
from his loins to testify to God as their lord (see Q
7:171). This was intended to show that worship of
one true God was inherent in human nature.
See also allah; angel; prophets and prophesy;
soUl and sUpport.Further reading: M. J. Kister, “Adam: A Study of Some
Legends in Tafsir and Hadith Literature.” Israel Oriental
Studies (1993): 113–174; Gordon Darnell Newby, The
Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earli-
est Biography of Muhammad (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1989).adat See customary law.
adhan (Arabic; also azan)
Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, is recited in
Arabic before each of the five daily prayers fromK 12 Adam and Eve