In one of his articles*,
Mr Katz has pointed out a contradiction in two verses of the Qur’an.
According to 16:49-50, the Qur’an says that the angels are not arrogant
and they do what God commands them to. While according to the second of
these verses (2:34), when God commanded the angels to prostrate before
Adam, Iblis (Satan) refused to do so. Mr Katz writes:
The command of Allah is given to the angels.
Since Iblis is accused of not being obedient, he has to be one of
the angels.
In this article, we shall look into the
above contradiction pointed out by Mr Katz.
The fact is that the above contradiction
stands resolved only by recognizing that the Qur’an has declared
that Iblis was not one of the angels, but a jinn. The Qur’an
says:
And when We said to the angels: ‘Prostrate before
Adam’, they all bowed down, except Iblis -- he was a jinn and he
haughtily disobeyed his Lord. (18:50)
However, one may ask that if Iblis
was not an angel, then how could he be said to have disobeyed God,
by not prostrating before Adam, especially when the Qur’an says
that the directive of prostration was addressed to the angels.
In my opinion, the answer to this
question is that according to the Qur’an, although it was primarily
the angels who were directed to prostrate before Adam, it was, nevertheless,
expected of the jinn who were in the court at that time to follow suit.
In other words, by directing the angels to bow down before Adam, God had
directed a higher cadre of His creation to submit to a command, the lower
cadre creations like jinn and any others that may have been present at
the time, were expected to do the same. This style of speech is used in
almost all human languages. For instance, when someone says: ‘When the
Chief Justice enters the hall all the parliamentarians shall pay their
respects by standing up for him’, he generally implies that all those present
in the hall (personnel of the press, the foreign diplomats, the media personnel
and guests of the members) should stand to pay their respects to the Chief
Justice. The word ‘parliamentarians’ in such a sentence is not to signify
that the directive is given only to those who are members of the parliament,
but is a generalization in which a higher cadre of personnel is given a
directive with the implication that others are also expected to follow
suit.
However, even if we assume that the
directive was misconstrued by Iblis to be limited in its implication
to the angels only, it would have followed that when God asked Iblis:
‘Why did you not bow down?’, he should logically have said that 'I did
not bow down because I was not commanded to do so'. But that is not the
case. The Qur’an says:
All the angels fell down prostrate, but Iblis
did not. He refused to be among those who prostrated. Allah said: ‘O
Iblis! What is wrong with you, why are you not among those who bowed
down’. He replied: ‘I shall not bow down to something that you have created
from sounding clay’. (15:30-33)
At another instance, the Qur’an explains:
Then we said to the angels: Bow down to Adam.
They bowed down, except Iblis. He was not among those who bowed
down. Allah said: ‘What stopped you from bowing down, when I directed you
to do so’. He said: ‘I am better than him, you created me from fire and
you created him from dust’. (7:11-12)
Then again, the Qur’an says:
So the angels bowed down, all of them. But Iblis
did it not. He showed haughtiness and became a rejecter. Allah said:
O Iblis, what stopped you from bowing down to the one whom I created
with My hands. Was it your pride [that stopped you] or are you among the
elevated ones? He said: ‘I am better than him. You created me from fire
while him you created from dust’. (39:73-76)
The above verses clearly show that although
the words of the referred directive could have been construed to be addressed
to the angels only, yet there was no doubt in Iblis’ mind
that he too was commanded to prostrate before Adam. His abstinence from
prostration was not because of any misunderstanding of the directive but
because of his haughtiness and arrogance.
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