@ Bison
A curious observation strikes me as this discussion (not a debate; for such things are for spotty-faced little catamites who want to bare their hairy chest) wears on, namely that a good deal of energy is being deflected answering trifling details on which no two men so vastly conflicted can agree. This is tedious. Instead of unpacking every assumption that underlies every thought, I will try to focus on grand overarching themes of first and last things so don't confound my new approach for silent agreement. I will of course indicate where I err as has consistently been my policy. Lose not the forest for the trees and all that jazz. God. Redemption. Paradise and Titty Bars. Got that?
Sounds great.
False analogy. Satan does not concede that he was recalcitrant. He says only that he is superior to Adam. This is no mere rodomontade. It is a justified belief on his part given his already established supremacy to the angels. Of course he might be wrong in that belief, but that is not the same thing as wilful rebellion. The assumption that he was guilty of wrongdoing can only be maintained by accepting the Quran's contradictory claim that he was enjoined to kneel by Allah when the injunction, in every single rehash of the story, goes out only to the angels.
In the interest of avoiding repeating myself, I will not contest your alleged refutation of my analogy.
A more precise analogy is a teacher who reprimands a schoolboy for failing to complete his homework when the task was set only for the girls. It does not validate the teacher's charge if the boy, faced with a powerful adult, fails in the grip of trepidation to pick up on this error. Granted that Satan's answer makes no sense without the supposition that he was included, but that contradiction is not for me to resolve. And note that there is a contradiction: Allah claims that he enjoined Iblis to carry out a task which he (Allah) manifestly did not.
I would have accepted your analogy had Iblis’ choice of words indicated any fear, but the words indicate such confidence, he even explained his pride prevented him from kneeling which is a pretty damn clear self- indictment as far as I’m concerned. I’ll leave it at that.
None of your selected passages say that pride is a sin apart from others. They only suggest that the damned are of the proud. The damned presumably are of the unbelieving, the fornicating and the gambling too. The only sin for which Allah does not pardon a man is shirk. Pride, along with all other peccadilloes, is forgiven as this illustrates:
"Surely Allah does not forgive that anything should be associated with Him, and He forgives what is besides this to whom He pleases; and whoever associates anything with Allah, he indeed strays off into a remote error." (4:116)
You disappoint me, Bison. I asked for only one verse and you give me this one? How about we read it in context:
4:115
And whosoever opposeth the apostle after the truth hath become manifest unto him, and followeth other way than that of the believers, We shall let him follow that to which he hath turned, and shall roast him in Hell - an evil retreat.
4:116
Lo! Allah pardoneth not that partners should be ascribed unto Him. He pardoneth all save that to whom He will. Whoso ascribeth partners unto Allah hath wandered far astray.Why would a Meccan pagan, AFTER the truth has been manifest unto him, still ascribe Allat, Al-Uza and Manat as partners with God? Answer: Pride/stubbornness much like the case of Satan. See the next verse:
4:117
They invoke beside Him but females, and they invoke not but a Satan rebellious.
So the only verse you could find is still about condemning pride (towards God).
I comprehend the story of the Fall, though your rendition appears slightly modified from the orthodox version that places the scene of Adam's adventures in the clouds.
It depends on your definition of Orthodox, but this wasn’t really the orthodox view until about the time of Ibn Taymiyyah, but even he didn’t seem to make up his mind on the issue.
قال شيخ الإسلام في كتاب النبوات (2/704):
كان أصح القولين أن جنة آدم جنة التكليف لم تكن في السماء فإن إبليس دخل إلى جنة التكليف جنة آدم بعد إهباطه من السماء, وقول الله له:{ فاخرج منها فإنك رجيم وإن عليك لعنتي إلى يوم الدين}, وقوله: {قال فاخرج منها مذموما مدحورا} لكن كانت في مكان عال في الأرض من ناحية المشرق ثم لما أكل من الشجرة أهبط منها إلى الأرض كما قد بسط هذا في غير هذا الموضع ولفظ الجنة في غير موضع من القرآن يراد به بستان في الأرض
I know you probably don’t speak Arabic, but Hassan can help verify my claims. Of course, I really don’t care what the so-called “scholars” think, but even they were disputing as to whether the Garden was on earth or heaven. (btw, Shia also believe Adam’s Garden was on Earth).
My wider complaint was that the Quran is a botched recapitulation of Genesis where key plot elements are conspicuously missing. Consider that the Quran nowhere explains why the fateful tree in the Garden of Eden was verboten. The Old Testament explains that it was because it represented a tree of knowledge to eat from which, the devil tempted, gave one supernatural powers to rival God. Seen from that light, the sin was a worthwhile gamble for self betterment. The Quran in sharp contrast doesn't indicate why, of all the boundless delights open to him, Adam chose to eat from the single tree off limits to him. Was he bored of the virgins? What was the man's impelling drive to consciously flout a divine prohibition? Answer: Iblis offered him immortality (20:120). But wait: There is no death in Jannah. So what would he gain from so doing? There is no coherent narrative. Examples can be multiplied.
Ok so you said that the reason why Adam was tempted to eat from the tree was not clear in the Quran and then you said he did it seeking immortality (a very good reason), but then you said there’s no death in the Garden. Correction: there’s no death in the *promised* paradise. God didn’t promise Adam immortality in the Garden, He promised him that he won’t feel hungry or thirsty nor go naked or suffer the
sun’s heat. He promised him felicity, but never immortality. In fact, Satan when he pleaded with God, he specifically asked to be given a chance until the day
they’re resurrected, which clearly implies Adam was not promised immortality. The Quran promised immortality only when it spoke of the Gardens of the afterlife. Anyway, Satan didn’t only suggest that the tree would give them immortality, he also suggested that the tree would make them two angels or give them an eternal kingdom. So they ate from it despite God’s stark warning to them that Satan was their enemy (Ta-Ha:117).
I concur that God said he would establish a khilafah on earth. From there it is downhill. Your conviction that the Garden was on earth (new to me) is grounded upon that single allusion if I understand correctly.
Like I said, Shia (who I guess are affected by Mutazilite views to some extent) believe the Garden was on earth. As for Sunnis, they were in dispute until at some point, they decided that it was in heaven.
Three other passages however suggest that the garden was in heaven. For one thing, Sura al-Baqara states that when Adam plucked the forbidden fruit his punishment was to be transferred to earth:
"Then did Satan make them slip from the (garden), and get them out of the state (of felicity) in which they had been. We said: "Get ye down, all (ye people), with enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling-place and your means of livelihood - for a time." (2:36)
Transparently the ol' boy could not have been luxuriating on this orbiting rock of dirt if his punishment was to be sent here. For another thing, the Quran indicates that he was sent "down" as opposed to sent out. The distinction is vital. To be evicted from a terrestrial garden is to be evicted out as in the time when I kicked you out for cheating on me with the imam of the Sword of the Infidel-Slayer Mosque; not evicted down, for that suggests an extra-terrestrial plane. Unless the Quran's author was innocent of elementary grammar, this is what he means.
Again, Bison, I explained the verb used can mean to leave a higher state to an inferior one (see 2:61). Now, man was cast out of his former superior state of felicity to suffer an inferior state: normal earth conditions very much unlike the Garden. The second part of the verse (2:36) might sound as though they were moved to earth, but the last phrase – for a time – clarifies the entire verse: Man was cast out of the superior state of the Garden but HE WAS STILL allowed to live on earth until a prescribed hour but with much more inferior conditions, including war.
Finally, Adam's anointing ceremony was in the presence of the Skydaddy and the angels who reside in the higher spheres. From these clues mainstream theology has always maintained that the Garden is in the sky. Your heterodox view rests on a single allusion (2:30), the mainstream view to which I subscribe on three. The contradiction between them is not a problem for me of course; it's a mark of poor composition.
Main stream view on this was pinned centuries after the departure of the prophet. And elsewhere you contended that the kneeling of the angels could have taken place while Adam was on earth, but now it seems you retract your previous position.
To forestall the confusion that befogs any drawn out conversation, let us revisit the central charge. If the foregoing is correct, Satan could not have spoken to Adam because he was railroaded out of the garden. Going further, Iblis' eternal damnation for a single act of folly (if such it may be called given the absence of wrongdoing) contradicts Allah's claim that he forgives all sins but shirk. If the verse doesn't fit, dear jurors of the trial, one must acquit!
I don’t care to repeat myself, as for the verse on God not forgiving shirk, read it again in context as I explained above.
Topic: Hi from on the fence muslim