What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?

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What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
OP - June 01, 2009, 06:53 PM

Can anyone give me a more-or-less detailed explanation of what Islam says about the creation of Adam and Eve and whatever happened afterwards? Or point me to where I can find info about this?

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #1 - June 02, 2009, 12:13 AM

I know this is not what you are asking for, but its the best i can do:

It tells us "we are created from earth (11:61), sometimes from dry clay (15:26,28,33, 17:61, 32:7), sometimes from nothing (19:67), sometimes not from nothing (52:35), sometimes from wet earth (23:12), or from mire (38:71), sometimes from water (25:54, 21:30, 24:45), sometimes from dust (3:59, 30:20, 35:11) or even sometimes from the dead (30:19, 39:6)".

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #2 - June 02, 2009, 01:33 AM

It teaches us nothing.

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #3 - June 02, 2009, 08:00 AM

Oh :S

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #4 - June 02, 2009, 08:08 AM

If you are just browsing, perhaps consulting the Divine Oracle (wikipedia) might suffice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve#Islamic_tradition

But there's a lot more to it than that. In particular, the fact that there are two Adams in the Quran, just as there are in Talmud: an Adam Kadmon (an original Adam that the angels bow to) and a fallen Adam (who is a Prophet):
http://thegoodgarment.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/christ-adam-and-the-logos/

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #5 - June 02, 2009, 08:27 AM

Quote from: The tailor on June 02, 2009, 08:08 AM
If you are just browsing, perhaps consulting the Divine Oracle (wikipedia) might suffice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve#Islamic_tradition

But there's a lot more to it than that. In particular, the fact that there are two Adams in the Quran, just as there are in Talmud: an Adam Kadmon (an original Adam that the angels bow to) and a fallen Adam (who is a Prophet):
http://thegoodgarment.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/christ-adam-and-the-logos/

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Huh, how did you make 2 different adams out of one guy?

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #6 - June 02, 2009, 10:44 AM

Because the first is sublimated to form the second. The fruit was necessary for this to occur and this sublimation is necessary for there to be Love. See my blog for the details

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https://vimeo.com/110528857
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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #7 - June 02, 2009, 10:59 AM

There's only one Adam. Your talking about the same Adam but in a different predicament at different times. There are millions of me's btw. There's me the Muslim, me the Ex-Muslim, me the non-vegetarian, me the sympathetic towards vegetarianism, me the sceptic of vegetarianism, me the student, me the chocolate-lover, me the coffee lover, me from a minute ago, me from 2 minutes ago. Heck, they should all be getting a vote each in this upcoming election, right?

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #8 - June 02, 2009, 11:01 AM

Oh and what does subliminate mean?

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #9 - June 02, 2009, 12:33 PM

Quote from: J4m3z on June 02, 2009, 10:59 AM
There's only one Adam. Your talking about the same Adam but in a different predicament at different times. There are millions of me's btw. There's me the Muslim, me the Ex-Muslim, me the non-vegetarian, me the sympathetic towards vegetarianism, me the sceptic of vegetarianism, me the student, me the chocolate-lover, me the coffee lover, me from a minute ago, me from 2 minutes ago. Heck, they should all be getting a vote each in this upcoming election, right?

Yeah, kind of. There are millions of different you's and two Adams, but one body. So that's a good way of saying it.

But in Hasidic Judaism (and Syriaic Gnostic Christianity that Muhammed presumably had a lot to do with before his revelation), Adam Kadmon (the original Adam) continues to exist after the fall of Adam into the earthly plane. A Hasidic friend of mine called Adam Kadmon something like a "plane of existence" -- the Gnostics called it an "Aeon" -- that many prophets (including Adam-the-prophet) had contact with in order to receive Light from God. They conceive of this Adam Kadmon as something like what Catholics call the "Body of Christ" that you eat and drink in the Eucharist ceremony. To over simplify probably, Adam Kadmon is the precise nature of God's relationship to humanity, and so we subsist (feed from that plane -- which is essentially one of Love) on that plane even though we cannot perceive it. When we restore all the bad stuff in the world around us (through acts of charity and love to ourselves and our neighbours) then this hidden subsistence becomes a visible one and that's sort of the idea of paradise.

Again, the details are sketched in more clarity in my blog

The Divisions of Love, second album by my Cabbalacore band, the Friends of Design, out now:

https://vimeo.com/110528857
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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #10 - June 02, 2009, 03:55 PM

Tailor, Adam was one guy, wasn't he?

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #11 - June 02, 2009, 04:23 PM

Quote from: J4m3z on June 02, 2009, 03:55 PM
Tailor, Adam was one guy, wasn't he?

Are you asking me on behalf of the Hasids or my own view?

For the Hasids, the primordial Adam Kadmon is distinguished from Adam the fallen first man. So you call them both Adam and there is a relationship between the two, but Adam Kadmon is a plane of existence (a bit like another dimension of reality) that we can enter. In their version of Kabbalah, the Messiah is the entrance to Adam Kadmon.

For me, I believe pretty much the same thing my Hasidic friends do. But then I go all Gnostic Christian, following the verse in the Quran that compares Adam to Jesus -- "Verily, the likeness of Jesus in God?s Sight is the likeness of Adam (Qur?an 3:59).". So I believe this primordial Adam Kadmon is incarnated in the being of Jesus. I then extrapolate and believe that Jesus/Adam Kadmon is with us all the time: his sublimation is the foundation for all reality. This is the understanding of the (pre-Pauline, Jewish) Ebionite Christians (you can get a sense of what they believed by reading the scriptures of the various Nag Hammadi translations). Again, a group that Muhammed clearly had a lot of contact with (remember, Khadija's cousin was an Ebionite priest).

Asking me (or a Hasid) if they are the same guy is a bit like asking a Catholic about the trinity.

Sorry I can't give a straighter answer, but if you really want to see the whole argument laid out, you need to read
http://thegoodgarment.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/christ-adam-and-the-logos/

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The Divisions of Love, second album by my Cabbalacore band, the Friends of Design, out now:

https://vimeo.com/110528857
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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #12 - June 02, 2009, 05:26 PM

You've said it all now. It's like the trinity? Well the trinity is bullshit, so...

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Re: What does Islam teach about the myth of creation?
Reply #13 - June 02, 2009, 05:48 PM

Quote from: J4m3z on June 02, 2009, 05:26 PM
You've said it all now. It's like the trinity? Well the trinity is bullshit, so...

Yes, if you are not happy with the trinity, you won't be happy with the Hasidic/Tailorite view on Adam.

(But given that Adam didn't exist -- a fact I presume you agree with? -- at least in the sense that you exist in daily form in front of your computer -- I don't see why an "imaginary" entity cannot both be a plane of existence and a fallen prototype human/prophet. It's mythopoetic science-fiction, not mundane reality we are discussing here.)

The Divisions of Love, second album by my Cabbalacore band, the Friends of Design, out now:

https://vimeo.com/110528857
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