A Worthy Adversay, Part 3 Confrontation and Consequences

The title of my khutbah today is Confrontation and Consequences.

From Quran 38:71-85

“Your Lord said to the angels, ‘Truly I create a mortal from clay. So when I have shaped him and breathed into him My Spirit, then fall to him, ones who prostrate themselves.

So the angels prostrated, one and all, altogether but Iblis. He grew arrogant and had been among the ones who were ungrateful.

He (God) said, “O Iblis! What prevented you from prostrating to what I created with My two Hands? Have you grown arrogant or have you been among the ones who exalt themselves?

(Iblis) said, “I am better than he. You have created me from fire while You have created him from clay.

He (God) said, “Then go forth from here for truly you are accursed. And truly on you is My curse until the Day of Judgment.”

(Iblis) said, “My Lord! Then give me respite until the Day to be raised up.”

He (God) said, “Truly you are among the ones who are given respite until the Day of the known time.”

(Iblis) said, “By Your Great Glory, then I will certainly lead them one and all into error, but Your devoted servants among them.”

He (God) said, “This is The Truth and The Truth I say that I will fill hell with you and with one and all of those who heed you.”

Muslim commentators of the Quran, such as at-Tabari in the 8th century, Ath-Tha’labi in the 11th century,  Ibn Kathir in the 14th century and Ad-Diyarbakri in the  19th century offer background contextual information to support the Muslim creation story. God started creating on a Sunday and finished on a Friday. On the previous days, the heavens, Paradise, and the angels had been created, but on the last hour of Friday Adam’s body was shaped from clay collected from all parts of the world as well as from the Ka’ba. God placed Adam at the gate of Paradise expecting all the angels to come and marvel at His latest creation.

Ibn-Kathir and Ath-Tha’labi lay out the scenario:

“And so the angels pass by him. When they looked upon him they were terrified. Of all of them Iblis was the most frightened. Iblis kept walking around him and striking him. The body made sounds like a clay pot. (1)

And Iblis said, ‘You were created for some reason or other.’ He struck him with his hand. He seemed hollow! Iblis entered him through the mouth and exited by his rear. He said to his comrades, the angels who were with him, ‘This is a hollow creature. It is neither strong nor firmly connected.’ Then Iblis said to them, ‘You notice that He gave preference to this over you? So what are you going to do about it?’ They answered, ‘We will obey our Lord.’ Iblis said to himself, ‘By God, truly if He has given preference to this thing over me, I surely will defy Him. And if I am set above him, then I will destroy him.’ (2)

(1)Ibn Kathir, Abu ‘l-Fida’ Ismai’il. Qisas al-anbiya 1.40, edited by Mustafa ‘Abd Al-Wahid (Cairo: Dar at-ta’lif) 1968

(2)Ath-Tha’labi, Abu Ishaq Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim An-Nisaburi.  Qisas al-anbiya’ al-masaama ara’is al majalis, not published, cited in Peter Awn’s Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology

There is some scholarly debate as to whether it was just the angels in Iblis’ entourage who were asked to bow down before Adam or whether it was all the angels in the whole universe. Ibn Kathir concludes that this is something Only God knows.

Iblis’ refusal to acknowledge Adam by prostration puts him into the hypocrites camp- those whose pride renders them deaf to the Lord’s Word, the kafirun. “Ana khayrun minhu” or “I am better than he!” has become the catchphrase of arrogant boasters through the ages, and was likely to have been an ayat, a sign, to the community of the Prophet Muhammad. Just as Iblis was brought low with his pride, the Lord was preparing the same fate for the mushrikin who opposed Muhammad and refused to listen to his message.

Iblis’ pride comes from his belief that fire (his essence) is superior to clay (Adam’s essence).  “I am better than he. You have created me of fire and You have created him of clay.” 7:12. Iblis comes to this conclusion using reasoning by analogy, qiyas. Fire is more noble and more powerful than clay and fire can destroy clay completely in the heat of its flames. For Iblis, the superior being never bows to weaklings who, temporarily, have powerful supporters.

Later Quranic commentators actually used qiyas to point out that clay is better than fire. They noted that while fire can destroy clay, it is also true that clay is a more essential and flexible component of creation. The earth, home of mankind and so many other creatures, is made of clay. Clay is characterized by stability, composure, perseverance, and gentleness. Fire is restless, fickle, volatile, hasty, and has a tendency to breed destruction and ruin.

But the fact that Iblis was linked to qiyas became a concern for the Muslim community. Iblis’ reasoning on external qualities blinded him from appreciating Adam’s inner qualities, such as the spirit that God breathed into him and Adam’s knowledge. Iblis was so convinced of the logic of his argument regarding external qualities that his heart was hardened to God’s command and his stubbornness regulated him to destruction.  However, even if Iblis’ reasoning was not off, (maybe fire is better than clay- who knows), an even deeper concern remains which haunts us to this day: to what extent can man attain truth through his own reasoning? Or is all truth contained in the revelation? To what extent should we obey, and when can we strike out on our own because of reasoned decisions, even if this means to disobey? On a practical level, what was the later Muslim community to do when faced with problems whose solutions were not readily apparent in the Quran or sunnah of the Prophet?

In the Muslim tradition, different groups took different positions. The Zahiris rejected human reasoning entirely. Human reason alone was too feeble to be equated with the divine Quran and traditions of the Prophet. The Mu’tazilites took the opposite stance and thoroughly supported human reasoning power, nazar, as well as qiyas. Historically what won out was the moderate position of the legal scholar Ash-Shafi’i. Although there are times when human reason may be used to address questions of religious truth, it is fraught with danger and reason must not be allowed to overstep the limits. Thus, Iblis becomes. in the Muslim philosophical-theological tradition, a paradigm for the limitations and unreliability of reason.

I’d like to end this section on confrontation with a composite story that was popular in the 16th century and is related by Ad-Diyarbakri in Ta’rikh al-khamis. It takes the encounter of Iblis with Adam and weaves through Quranic and oral traditions. Iblis is a holy ascetic, zahid, who in Sufi fashion, ascends from the lower regions of earth to the highest layers of heaven to worship near the Divine Throne, one of the few brought near to God. There seems to be no measured place in the heavens or on earth where Iblis has not bowed to God in submissive worship.

“My God, does there remain a place in which I have not bowed?’ He (God) answered, “Yes, there is a place on earth. Hurry down there.’ Iblis descended down and said, ‘What is he?’ He replied, “That is Adam. Bow down before him!’ He (Iblis) asked, ‘Does there remain a place other than Adam?’ He answered, ‘No.’ He (Iblis) said, ‘Do not order me to bow before him! You have given preference over me.’ He said, ‘ I am the one who is free to choose. I do what I will. Do not question what I do.’ The angels were terrified when they heard this. They shuddered and trembled with fear. It is said that Iblis perceived Adam to be made of molded clay which had originated from between Ta’if and Makka. Iblis puffed himself up in grandiose fashion because of his own graceful adornments. He scorned Adam because of his clay substance.

        He (Iblis) would not face Adam. Instead he turned away from him and turned his back on him. He held himself erect in this way until they (the angels) bowed. They remained bowing for a hundred years, some say five hundred years. They raised their heads and he (Iblis) was still standing in the same place. He did not repent his refusal nor did he resolve to follow suit. When they discerned that he had held back and would not bow, they bowed again, a second time. This time it was to God whereas the first had been to Adam. Iblis saw this and yet he did not do what they did. It was of this that his refusal consisted.”

(PAUSE)

The consequence of Iblis’ initial confrontation with a human being ended in complete personal tragedy for him: Iblis is cut off from his angelic companions, branded a pariah, driven out of Paradise and other heavenly abodes, and his worth reduced to total contempt by God. Quranic commentators are unsure of his exact place of exile. Some think he lives on earth, others say the middle of the ocean, and then there is always Hell. They all agree that Hell is Iblis’ final resting place. In addition to his external transformation, Iblis is also transformed internally. There is the name change from Azazil to Iblis. His corrupt nature manifests itself as Ash-Shaytan, Satan. He is to be cursed, reviled, and driven away by decent people of faith. He is the stoned Satan, as per Quran 15:34 and 38:77; “Go you forth from here, for truly you are accursed! And truly a curse will be upon you until the Day of Judgment.”

Stoning as a symbol of punishment is preserved in the sky. Shooting stars are described in the Quran as a battle in the spirit world whereby Iblis’ jinn vanguards attempt to discern heavenly conversations only to be repelled by angels throwing meteorites at them. In 15:16-18 “And certainly We have made constellations in the heavens and We made them appear pleasing to the ones who look. And We have kept them safe from every accursed satan except he who has the ability to hear by eavesdropping. Then he is pursed by a clear flame.”  From 37:6-10 “Truly We have made to appear pleasing the present heaven with the adornment of the stars and kept safe from every emboldened Satan. They pay no attention to the lofty Council for they are hurled at from every edge, rejected.”  And finally in 72: 8-9 “And we (the jinn) stretched towards the heaven. Then we found it filled with stern guards and burning flames. And we had been sitting in a position having the ability to hear but whoever listens now will find a burning flame watching for him.”

Iblis’ punishment was put into ten categories by Ath-Tha’labi:

1. Iblis is stripped of all power. He no longer has guardianship of Paradise
2. God orders that Iblis be banished from Paradise and sent to earth.
3. Iblis form degenerates, he is no longer angelic, now he is devilish.
4. His old name, Azazil, is dropped and he now takes on the name Iblis. The name change also reflects a change of his internal character
5. God grants him leadership over the worst of people
6. Iblis bears God’s curse
7. Divine gnosis (ma’rifa) is beyond Iblis’ reach
8. There is no repentance for him
9. He is the eternal rebel, lacking goodness and compassion
10. Iblis will spend eternity being the spokesperson for the people of the raging Hellfire.

There are many stories from the Islamic tradition that express the emotional power of Iblis’ fall from grace. Ad-Diyarbakri emphasizes Iblis’ hard heart and contrary nature:

“Abu ‘’l-‘Aliya related that when Noah boarded the ark, lo and behold! There was Iblis standing at the ark’s stern. Noah said to him, ‘Woe unto you! It is because of you that people have drowned.’ He (Iblis) said, “What do you bid me do?’ He (Noah) said, ‘Repent!’. Iblis responded, “Ask your Lord whether a way of repentance is open to me.’ He (Iblis) was told that his repentace lay in bowing before the grave of Adam. Iblis retorted, ‘I abandoned him when he was alive. Will I bow down before him now that he is dead?’”

But the Muslim tradition does not just remember Iblis’ fierce pride. Ath-Tha’labi reaffirms the glory of Iblis’ former life, reminding the reader that as Azazil his existence had been completely different:

The story is told that Iblis appeared to a group of the Banu Isra’il. They said to him ‘Assume the statue you held in the presence of the Lord God Almighty, in other words, in accordance with the position you held before you disobeyed your Lord.’ He answered, ‘You could not bear the sight of it.’ They kept pestering him, so he assumed his former posture. When they looked upon him, upon his humility and obedience, they fell down dead- every last one of them.    Ath-Tha’labi, ‘Ara’is al-majalis

Despite all his former devoted service, Iblis’ requests bring back nothing but harsh condemnations. Ath-Tha’labi recounts another exchange:

People tell the story that Iblis cried, “O Lord, You have cursed me. You have banished me from Paradise; You have transformed me into a stoned satan, reprehensible, cast out. Yet You have sent messengers among the people of Adam. You have sent holy books down upon them. Who are to be my messengers?’

God answered, ‘The soothsayers.’

Iblis asked, ‘And what are my holy scriptures?’

“Tattooed scrawls’

‘And what are to be my traditions (hadith)?’

‘Your hadith are lies.’

‘And what should I recite?’

‘Your recitation is poetry.’

And who is my muezzin?’

‘Your muezzin is the piper.’

‘And what is my mosque?’

‘Your mosque is the bazaar.’

‘And what is my home?’

‘Your home is the bath.’

‘And what is my food?’

‘Your food is the food over which My name has not been invoked.’

‘And what is my drink?’

‘Your drink is anything alcoholic.’

‘And what are my hunting grounds?’

‘Your hunting grounds are women.’

It would be wrong to think that Iblis’ many thousands of years of humble submission didn’t count for anything. After all, when Iblis petitions for a stay of execution, God gives him a respite until the final Day of Resurrection and Judgment.

Nevertheless, some commentators have interpreted Iblis request as a scheme to secure freedom from Hell. After the Resurrection there will no longer be any death. If Iblis can stay alive until Resurrection Day he will have outwitted God. But this ruse is bound to fail as God will only allow him to exist up until the First Trumpet blast. Iblis will be destroyed, along with the rest of the world, in the apocalypse and his reward is the eternal fire, final resting place of all unbelievers.

In my next khutbah I will examine Iblis’ seduction of our ancestors, Adam and Eve.

Islamic Awareness

Iqra bismi Rababikal-ladhi khalaq

            Khalaqal- Insana min alaq.

            Iqra wa Rabbukal-Akram.

            Alladhi allama bilqalam.

            Allamal-Insana ma lam ya’lam.

            Kallaa innal-Insana layatghaa,

            Ar-ra ‘ahus taghna.

            Inna ila Rabbikar-ruj’a. [96:1-8]

            Read, in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created

            Created humans out of a germ-cell.

            Read – for thy Sustainer is the Most Bountiful One

            Who has taught humakinds the use of the pen

            Taught humans what they did not know!

            Truly, humans become grossly presumptuous

            Whenever they believe themselves to be self-suficient:

            For behold, unto thy Sustainer all must return. 

           

What is happening to Islam in America?  My husband and I have been reading as much as we can, as have many others, about the quest by contemporary Muslims to find meaning in our faith.  We have also been seriously studying the Quran and Seerah and Hadith.  We have come to the point where we feel pretty confident about at least one thing.  The Quran is not a book of instructions revealed to a privileged people in a privileged language for the rest of humanity to follow.  We have come to understand the Quranic phenomenon in a different light.  And we have found that this understanding has strengthened our faith. 

The foundation of our faith is like no other text in human history.  Quran is the transcription of 23 years of revelations we take as divine, to a man we take as our Prophet, Muhammad, pbuh.  The revelations themselves, the life of the Prophet, and the faithful documentation of both, changed the course of human history.  There has never been a life as studied and meticulously recorded.  The volume and breadth of scholarship that followed him is nothing short of astounding.  We, as Muslims, have quite a legacy.

And yet, today in America, in the 21^st century, we struggle mightily with that legacy.  We struggle with the language and structure of Quran, because it addresses a 7^th century man in a language that most Muslims (including native Arabic speakers) do not know well, if at all.  Much of Quran is sublime and beautiful and inspires us at times to tears – verses that describe Allah’s creation, human nature, and Allah’s transcendent nature.  But we struggle with other parts of the content.  As examples, I will focus on a few ayat related to three especially problematic issues:  women, punishment, and Jews. 

The first ayah concerns the terms of divorce.  Ayah 4 from Surah 65, At-Talaq addresses the issue of the period of time required between deciding to divorce and completing the divorce.  The ayah contains the following phrase:

Wal-laa’i ya isna minal-mahhidi min-nisaa ikum inir-tabtum fa’iddatuhunna thalathatu ashhurinw-wal-laa’i lam yahidn.  [65:4]

           

Laleh Bakhtiar provides an accurate translation:

“As for those who give up hope of menstruation among your women, if you are in doubt, their waiting period is three months, as well as for those who have not yet menstruated.  As for those who are pregnant, their waiting period is until they bring forth a baby…”

We all know the debate about Aisha’s age at her marriage to the Prophet.  Books of Seerah record that Aisha was nine years old, which she confirmed herself in a Hadith (Muslim, #1422).  It is understandable that many faithful Muslims today have a hard time with the notion that our beloved Prophet would have married a nine year old, especially when he was by then in his fifties.   Now that is illegal in most countries.   And yet, here is a verse in Quran that says that women who have not yet had their period must also wait three months before getting divorced.  Girls who had not yet menstruated were married in the Prophet’s time, and this is referenced in Quran without condemnation.

The second issue in my Quranic reference concerns the specificities of hudud punishments.  The punishment for waging war against the faith is spelled out in Ayah 33 of Surah Al-Maa’idah (5), in detail:

Innama jazaa ‘ul-ladhina yuharibunal-laha wa Rasulahu wa yas’awna fil-ardi fasadan ‘any-yuqattaluu aw yusallabuu aw tuqatta’a aydihim wa arjuluhum-min khilafin aw yunfaw minal-ard.  Dhalika lahum khizyun-fid-dunya wa lahum fil-Akhirati adhabun azim.  [5:33]

Yusuf Ali translates this as

The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is:  execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the hereafter. 

This is only one of many verses that describe punishments that today we find inhumane.  I point this out for the simple reason that some militant groups commit their excesses with selective and literal reference to verses like these, taken out of context.

The final ayah I reference here concerns the Jews.  We have all probably heard of the ayah from Surah Al-Baqarah [2:65], and Surah Al-A’raf  [7:166] where God explains having told the Jews who had disobeyed and violated the Sabbath, “Be as apes, despicable!” 

But perhaps you are not familiar with Ayah 5 from Surah 62, Al-Jumu’ah.

Mathalul-ladhina hummilut-Tawrata thumma lam yahmiluha kamathalil-himari yahmilu asfara.  Bi’sa mathalul-qawmil-ladhina kadhdhabu bi’Ayatil-lah.  Wal-lahu la yahdil-qaw-maz-zalimin.  [62:5]

The parable of those who were graced with the burden of the Torah, and thereafter failed to bear this burden, is that of a donkey that carries a load of books.  Calamitous is the parable of people who are bent on giving the lie to God’s messages – for God does not bestow His guidance on such evildoing folk!

Try using that one in an interfaith dialogue!  How do we explain that ayah to our Jewish friends?  How do we explain any of these ayat to ourselves?

How can we understand the ayat from Quran, these and many others, that we cannot possibly apply to our lives today, but that we also cannot dismiss or ignore?

            There are two ways we can put the heritage of our faith in perspective.  First is to return to the sources – the original sources – to learn the stories about the revelations that comprise the Quran.  Those stories help us put the revelations in their proper context – historically and culturally.  Second, we mine the text for its essential messages - what Abou El Fadl calls “the moral trajectory or objective of the text.”  In fact, we do this all the time, but we sometimes lack confidence in our own insights.

When we read the stories from Seerah and Hadith in their original form, we get a picture of the Prophet and his companions, in all their humanity.  The early scholars gave us the tremendous gift of recording, as accurately as they could, the stories told by those who lived with Prophet Muhammad, pbuh.  In fact, the amount of material collected was so overwhelming that over the years subsequent scholars developed a whole science of verification, and condensed it into more easily manageable guides that could be referenced and applied.  Those references came to be followed as law by subsequent scholars, but they also reflect the cultural norms of their writers, and should be studied with that in mind.  None of the founders of madhabs believed that their opinions should stand for all time, without review.

Prophet Muhammad was, above all, a man, a fallible human being.  Marvelous as he was, revelations sometimes came to correct mistakes he had made, or to reassure him when he had doubts.  His community was also comprised of fallible individuals.  The Quran, Seerah, and Hadith tell the remarkable story of how the phenomenon of revelation came and guided the Prophet, and answered many of the questions that were raised by the Muslims themselves, women and men.  Revelation was an interactive process, and the messages were perfectly calibrated to respond to the needs, the cognitive abilities and the cultural imperatives of the Prophet and his followers. 

We know from Ayah 65:4 and from Aisha’s narrative in Hadith that in 7^th century Arabia grown men, even old men, married young girls.  That was the cultural norm of the time.  Revelation acknowledged that culture, in order to communicate an essential message – to protect vulnerable women and unborn children – and gave the community tools that they could actually implement to help achieve that goal – a three-month waiting period to validate paternity.  The Quranic revelations, especially those that came in the years the community was creating a new society in Madinah, were eminently practical for that time.  They were not designed to be eminently practical for us. 

In looking at Ayah 5:33 about punishment for a hudud, we also need to understand the context of the revelation.  Surah Al-Maa’idah was revealed toward the end of the Madinah period, around year 10 AH.  The Muslims in Madinah had enemies not only plotting attacks from without, but hypocrites betraying them from within, forming secret alliances with their enemies.  The survival of the community was at stake, but most important was the need to protect the fundamental right to follow the Prophet’s message.  During that time, revelation served to inspire and reinforce the Muslim community, and to provide needed rules for the conduct of social, economic and military affairs.  The punishments listed in Quran sound harsh and unreasonable to us today, but we should keep several things in mind.  First, in practice they served primarily as deterrents.  The Arabs were used to war and living in a harsh environment.  Potential punishments had to be harsh or they would not have had a deterrent effect.  Second, the punishments prescribed were always followed by an injunction to pardon those who ask forgiveness.  Third, we must consider the realities of life in the Arabian peninsula in the 7^th century AD.  There were no prisons.  Physical punishments and banishment were the punitive norm at the time.   The essence of Ayah 5:33 is that belief in God is a fundamental right that merits whatever defense is necessary. 

The last ayah I referenced, Ayah 5 from Surah 62, Al-Jumu’a, was revealed in the early part of the Madinah period.  The Muslims had recently migrated to the city that was home to many Jewish tribes. Prophet Muhammad expected that since his message followed the chain of prophecy that began with Abraham, the Jews would naturally understand it.  Stories in Quran about the Children of Israel illustrate what had happened before when people were given revelation by a prophet and then ignored it.  But most of the Jews did not accept Muhammad’s prophecy, and some of them actively betrayed him to his enemies.  Quran condemned them harshly for this.  We can understand that condemnation as contextual to the time and circumstance.   We cannot use it as an excuse to demonize an entire faith community.  The only way for us as Muslims in America to relate to this ayah is to put it in its historical context, as condemning enemies of the state who happened to be of the Jewish faith who lived in Madinah 1400 years ago, who battled the Prophet, pbuh.

We Muslims need to rediscover and reconnect with the empowering and liberating awareness of our Islamic heritage.   We need to learn how to put our incredible legacy of Islamic scholarship and teaching into context and perspective, so that we can really engage with it.  We need to revere scholarship, but not worship scholars.   The past is a challenge to which we must rise, not a chain to enslave us.

           

My husband Osama went with his sister Nagwa to a bookstore in Cairo in January 2014, to buy copies of the original works of the classical scholars - The Interpretation of Quran by Tabari, Al Bukhari, Muslim, Seerat Ibn Hisham, and books about the lives and fiqh of the four scholars – Abu Hanifa, Malik, As Shafie, and Ibn Hanbal.   Nagwa is a devout Muslim and a relentless intellectual.  She had demonstrated during the Egyptian revolution, and was then shocked by the positions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis.  She supported Sisi’s coup against them, and then began to question her faith.  She wondered why Osama was not looking for contemporary writers about Islam.  Why go back to these ancient sources?   Because, he told her, we need to read the original sources in order to get beyond the filters that subsequent writers brought into to their work.  She was not really convinced that would be helpful.

This September, Osama went back to Egypt.  Nagwa went with him again to look for more of these books.  But this time she told him, this is exactly what we need to do, because people are lost.  They no longer trust the messages coming from Al Azhar, and they don’t know where to turn. 

We are in a unique position, we Muslims in America.  We have the good fortune and the luxury to be able to critically and analytically engage with our faith tradition – really for the first time in the history of Islam.  Even the reformers who have been part of Islamic history since the beginning, and especially in the age of modernity – even Mohammed Abdu, and Rashid Rida, even the great Ali Shariati - none of them has been able to engage our faith tradition with a critical and analytical mind.  The best they have been able to offer is reform around the edges – accommodations that attempt to make our custom and tradition more palatable in the modern world.  Constructive criticism requires a mindset that they simply did not have.  They also did not have the luxury of living in a political and economic system that empowers true freedom of exploration.  We do. 

In fact, many Muslims have already committed themselves to the challenge.  We don’t have to be scholars of Arabic – I am the first example.  We have a wealth of resources available to us now in English.  Original sources are increasingly being translated and are available online and in print.  But our greatest resource is thoughtful, critical analysis and common sense, combined with faith, and the conviction that if something doesn’t make sense to us, we have to keep searching until it does, and that an answer is there to be found.

May God give us the strength to rise to the challenge, and may God forgive us our mistakes, and forgive us if we do not try.

Bismil-lahir Rahmanir-Rahim

Qul a’udhu biRabbin-nas.

Malikin-nas.

Ilahin-nas.

Min-sharril-waswasil-khannas.

Alladhi yuwaswisu fi sudurin-nas.

Minal-Jinnati wan-nas.  [114:1-6]

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Say:  I seek refuge with the Sustainer of humankind,

The Sovereign of humankind,

From the evil of the whispering, elusive tempter who whispers in the hearts of people,

From all invisible forces as well as humankind.

A Worthy Adversary, Part 2 Angel or Jinn

The title of my khutbah today is “A Worthy Adversary, Part 2 Angel or Jinn?” This is a continuation of a khutbah I gave last month on Iblis in the Qur’an. And again, I will be primarily drawing on Peter Awn’s book “Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology “.

The character of Iblis appears numerous times in the Qur’an, and in fact, there is an English language book which examines every ayah in the Qur’an in which Ilbis is mentioned: The Poetics of Iblis: Narrative Theology in the Qur’an by Whitney S. Bodman. The author does try to use the theme of the surah and the context of Iblis’ actions, in order to draw more light on the character of Iblis. However, despite this extensive analysis, the Qur’an alone gives a limited picture. By comparing links to the Iblis motif in other genres of Islamic religious literature, we can explore the common roots of the biography of the Muslim devil. Once we understand the significance of the devil in the context of Islamic life, then we can begin to see the enormous creativity the Sufis used with respect to Iblis symbols. In essence, all these stories whether in the Qur’an, in medieval Christian texts or non-canonical Jewish texts, all of these stories are wrestling with the question of evil and how to cope with it.

Just to demonstrate the enormous creative potential of borrowing from non-canonical and Rabbinic sources to explain evil, I’d like to read from the English language epic poem of  John Milton, “Paradise Lost” composed in the late 1600s. This is a beautiful poem with amazing language, and I’d like to quote one of the more famous lines. This is Satan speaking, he has been expelled from heaven, and you’ll see Milton makes a reference to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, and then takes it even further:

“…Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! Hail,

Infernal world! And thou, profoundest Hell,

Receive thy new possessor; one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

What matter, where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but the less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

-John Milton, lines 249-263, Book I, Paradise Lost

The two types of literature I’ll be looking at today are Qur’an commentaries (primarily Aṭ-Ṭabari) and collections of prophetic stories. There is a third area, hadith, but I won’t have time to discuss that today. Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Jarir Aṭ-Ṭabari was writing and collecting as many sirah, pre-Islamic stories and commentary(tafsir) from the time of the Prophet and the first few centuries after the Prophet's death ,as he best could in the ninth century. He did an impressive job, given the travel and communication restrictions of that time. In reading Aṭ-Ṭabari, he gives you a complete overview, complete with critique and commentary, and then allows the reader to decide how the data should be interpreted.

The Aṭ-Ṭabari tafsir of Iblis is likely to be drawing on the Jewish Book of Enoch (200 BC). Before he sinned, Iblis was known as Azazil or Harith. Azazil was the most hard-working and devout spirit who inhabited the earth, and he was famous for his learning and wisdom. Muslims do not question Iblis’ spirituality, he was clearly meant to be present when God asked the angels to bow before Adam. What is in question, is the precise definition of the species of spirits to which Iblis/Azazil belongs to. Iblis is clearly among the angels, but he is never named as an angel, and his sin of not bowing sets him clearly apart from the angels.  One Qur’anic verse describes him as a ‘jinn’:

“’And mention when We said to the angels: Prostrate to Adam! So they prostrated but Iblis. He had been among the jinn.” 18:50

But this verse does not clearly describe the nature of jinn. Are jinns a different breed of angel (Golden Retriever versus German Shepherd) or are they a different species (cats versus dogs)? And if they are a different species, then what is their relation to angels?

Some Qur’anic commentators interpret “he was from among the jinn” as the jinn are a particular tribe or clan of angels which were entrusted with guarding the gates to Paradise. It is the link with Paradise (al-janna or al-jinan) that accounts for their class name, jinn. These commentators argue that Iblis was in charge of the jinn clan, navigating the traffic between heaven and earth, and in the strength of his powerful position, his pride ripened.

Other Qur’anic commentators maintain ‘he was from among the jinn” has more significance than a tribal designation.  They argue that jinns and angels are fundamentally different, and Iblis’ origin should be traced to an inferior species of spirits called jinn. The argument against Iblis angel status is the definition of an angel, and in this Muslim and Jewish angelology and in agreement, “...angels, harsh,severe, who do not disobey whatever God commands them and they accomplish.” 66:6.

So if Iblis was not an angel, then how did he get to be with the angels when God created Adam? A number of Muslim commentators tell the story of a violent battle that took place when Iblis was a baby. The angels and jinn were at war, and during the combat Iblis was carried off by the angels as a captive. He grew up among them, not knowing his jinn origins, although God knew where he came from. Iblis lived and  prayed as an angel and even took on angel jobs (guardian of Paradise). Only when God created Adam was Iblis’ true nature revealed.

Aṭ-Ṭabari summarized the arguments in favor of Iblis having a non-angel origin in four areas;

1. When Qur’an speaks of jinn, it seems to indicate a clearly recognizable species of spirits and not just a class or breed
2. Angels by their nature are incapable of sin
3. Iblis has progeny and offspring, fathering jinn the same as Adam fathered mankind. Iblis is made of fire, angels are made of wind or light. Angels don’t eat, drink, or reproduce.
4. God would not make His messengers unbelieving or  depraved, because then they would distort His message, from “The Praise belongs to God, One Who is the originator of the heavens and earth, the One Who Makes the angels messengers...” 35:1.

Arguments in favor of Iblis being an angel are

1. Iblis has angelic status because he was among the angels at the time they were ordered to bow before Adam. If he hadn’t been one of them, he wouldn’t have been ordered to bow, nor would he have been accountable for his refusal. The order was only for angels. Jinn are a species or tribe of angels of a slightly different nature, called jinn because hidden (ijtanna) from eyes of men.
2. Perfection should not be attributed to all angels. Why is it not possible to have an angel who sins, even if most of them don’t? We are told that men are sinners, but we have examples of sinless people (Mariam, Muhammad peace be upon them both)
3. Jinns are made of fire versus angels made of wind or light- is there are real difference between fire and light? If there is, that difference is pretty negligible and the eat and drink evidence- hmmm. Just because Iblis has offspring is not automatically a sign of perversity or bad nature. Angels that are able to reproduce may be known as jinn. 
4. Another verse in the Qur’an reads, “God favors from the angels messengers and from humanity “ (22:75). To assume that God has messengers who are truthful and obedient is in accord with revelation, but to assume that the messengerhood of  few men and angels means all messengers are perfect is not good logic. There are always going to be a few exceptions to any rule.

Why am I spending all this time on Iblis, angel or jinn? To me, this argument is very similar to our current day “nature versus nurture” debate. Are some people simply born evil (jinns, inferior spirits) or do people learn to be evil (nurture, pride, bad choices). While we still debate this nature versus nurture discussion in the 21st century, by the sixteenth century, the inconclusive debate over Iblis origin had shifted. The primary concern was with Iblis’ interior life of faith. Was he a believer? What kind of worshiper was he? Two myths related by Ad-Diyarbakri describe Iblis’ life going through various stages of spiritual enlightenment, a Sufi path.

In the first myth, God creates Iblis, puts him under seven earths, and Iblis progresses through these earths using thousands of years of uninterrupted worship to climb higher into heaven. Only once Iblis is at heaven, he realizes there are six more heavens, so again, uninterrupted worship for thousands of years to end his arduous journey at the foot of the Throne of God.

In the second myth, after God created the jinn, God puts them on earth. The jinn reproduce, their offspring over-run the world and their lives consist of doing everything that is forbidden. They are greedy, envious and combative creatures. God sends them messengers in hope of some reform, but the jinn don’t listen. However, in the midst of all these bad jinn, there is one named Azazil who is different. Azazil doesn’t like his community and so he withdraws to a high mountain top where he spends his days and nights worshiping God. The angels in the lowest heaven notice Azazil’s piety and beg God to raise Azazil to their level in heaven. God does so, and Azazil is soon out-worshiping the angels. The angels in the second heaven now notice Azazil, beg God to raise him up, and so on through all seven heavens until Azazil is at the foot of the Throne. Azazil is so esteemed by the angels surrounding the Throne of God that he is granted guardianship of the treasury and the key to Paradise. However, Ad-Diyarbakri reminds the reader not to be too impressed by Azazil’s worship practice: “Do not be misled by his piety! Under every pious deed is evil. Do not put your trust in obedience! In every obedient act is ruin.”

No matter how faithful you are in acts of worship, no matter how deep your knowledge, at some critical junction you may be asked to make an irreversible decision and without God’s grace, you will make the wrong choice.

PAUSE

I want to end with a brief discussion of jinn in the Islamic tradition because jinn, considered to be the progeny /tribe of Iblis, have been used as a paradigm to explain evil for hundreds of years.  In other words, to understand why someone would cheat in the marketplace or commit adultery or gossip or forget their place in a prayer or fall sick or have an accident, people would say that a jinn was responsible. And this answer, at that time, and even now in some parts of the world, was acceptable. “The devil made me do it” was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

In early 21st century North America, we have different explanations which, by and large, do not invoke jinn.  Some of our ‘reasonable’ explanations include mental illness, genetic defects, bacteria, viruses, nutrient-poor diets, evolution, laws of physics, tectonic plate shifts, inadequate engineering design, socio-cultural power structures, and economics. These are our generation's perfectly reasonable explanations, and hundreds of years from now it is quite likely that our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will probably smirk and deride our ‘reasonable’ explanations.

Nevertheless, the common feature through time is that human beings have a deep need to name evil, and by naming the evil, then humans can figure out strategies for how to cope with it.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, writing about the history of cancer in the Emperor of All Maladies,notes:

“Even an ancient monster needs a name. To name an illness is to describe a certain condition of suffering- a literary act before it becomes a medical one. A patient, long before he becomes the subject of medical scrutiny, is, at first, simply a storyteller, a narrator of suffering- a traveler who has visited the kingdom of the ill. To relieve an illness, one must begin, then, by unburdening its story.” p 46.

Let’s go through a brief overview of jinn because jinn are a part of our Islamic tradition and many of these stories were collected by Aṭ-Ṭabari. Jinn are considered spiritual beings that live in the world of the unseen, that is reflected in their Arabic root word jim-nun-nun = invisibility/concealment. They were created before man, may be angels or at least created around the same time as angels. Not all jinn are the same. Some eat, drink, have kids, and die, others  are wind and do none of that stuff. Some have wings, some take on the form of animals.  Some commentators believed Iblis was the father of all jinn, in the same way that Adam was the father of all humans. In this way, Iblis is sometimes called Al-Jann. In the Islamic tradition, Iblis and his offspring were created from nar as-samun or marj min nar. This substance has been described as fierce heat of a smokeless fire, heat that penetrates the pores of the skin, the substance that makes lightning bolts, hot winds that blow at night, a very strong whirlwind, or the heart of a fire’s flame. The common features here are violent heat and immaterial quality.

Iblis is the father of the jinn in a physical as well as spiritual sense because jinn continue to reproduce among themselves.  Aṭ-Ṭabari reports from Ibn Zayd that God said to Iblis, “I will not provide Adam with offspring without having provided the same to you. No son of man exists who does not have a shaytan (satan) who is yoked together with him.” The mechanism of jinn reproduction is not clear. Iblis may be a hermaphrodite, in another story he makes eggs from which his children hatch, and a third story suggests he needs a mate, such s the serpent of Paradise who was his co-conspirator.  Iblis’ offspring include jinn as well as shaytin, satans or devils.

The Qur’an not only speaks of Iblis progeny, but  anyone- man, woman, jinn, shaytan- who pledges their allegiance to Iblis. The characteristics of Iblis’ followers are that they have no boundaries; anything depraved, gross, arrogant, insolent, wicked, sinful or wanton is acceptable to them. They even compete to see who is the most wicked as illustrated in this 14th century couplet:

“I was a fellow in Iblis’ gang

But I made such progress that he ended up in mine!” –An-Nisaburi

Which just goes to show that as with anything else, given enough determination and practice, any follower of Iblis, human or jinn, can perfect their skill in corruption and cruelty.

In my next khutbah, I will return again to the Adam story and review Iblis’ confrontation with God, the consequences of that choice, and the seduction of Adam and Eve.

My closing du’a is from 25:65-66 Our Lord! Turn away from us the punishment of hell, truly its punishment has been a continuous torment. Truly how evil a habitation and resting place.

Ameen.

References:
Quran translation: The Sublime Quran, translated into English by Laleh Bakhtiar 
Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology, by Peter Awn, 1983 Brill Press
The Poetics of Iblis: Narrative Theology in the Qur’an by Whitney S. Bodman, 2011 Harvard Divinity School Press
Paradise Lost by John Milton