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.
This performance inescapably suggests a gorilla's attempt to play the violin. Come now, is there a good reason at all why Iblis is never identified as among those to whom the injunction is given to kneel? The tale is recapitulated at least four times in the same exact formulation with no more detail than the first: "We told the angels to bow." It keeps neglecting Iblis. Does Allah suffer from chronic dementia?
You disappoint me, Bison. I asked for only one verse and you give me this one?
I’ve noted times without number that the Quran singles out all manner of sins for censure. I did not have to document the transparently obvious, but since you go in for such things here is a few such illustrations: Shirk (4:48), homosexuality (26: 165), theft (6: 152), drinking and gambling (5:90 -91). Your argument was that pride is uniquely wicked, a claim not borne out by the Quran. A host of acts are roundly condemned of which pride is one of many. Turning to my original point, to forever condemn Iblis for a run-of-the-mill offence like pride is the height of imbecility
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.
The notion that Jannah is situated up where the angels sing and the devils frolic is not peculair to Ibn Taymiyya. It's common to Sunni theologians of all schools.
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).
Did another garden await Adam conferring immortality beyond that in which he dwelled? The common belief is that Adam had been fated to reside eternally in the garden until he played up. Do you believe that his expulsion was preordained?
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.
This doesn't account for why the descent of Adam from the Garden is metaphorically interpreted when that of Iblis is not in light of the fact that the expulsion of both is identically phrased. Consistency demands that it be one or the other, but it can’t serve as both just to avoid the logical problems inherent in the story. What’s more, to argue that Sura al-Baqara does not indicate a transfer to earth is brilliant casuistry, but honest it is not. It’s latter part suggests nothing more than what is plain to every schoolboy of ten, that Adam and his babe will someday perish. I did say that one may interpret the scene of Adam’s anointment as having transpired on earth, but only at the cost of neglecting all the other passages that suggest otherwise. Your view proceeds on the authority of a single passage and sweeps away the more numerous ones that contradict it into the dustbin of hermeneutics.
Let me venture another question: Has Iblis ever been sighted by men? We know from the ahadith that jinns can assume human form and converse with mortals. If so, what keeps the spiritual head of nine tenths of humanity sequestered away? A genuine question.