By Dr Adekunle Mikail
The first man to be created by God remained Adam (May he continue to be blessed). The erroneous notion that Allah Had created some humans before him is a wrong assumption!
This assumption is based on the statement of the Angels that” You will create there who will spoil it and spill blood….”. Some Exegetes believe that the angels having witnessed how the pre-Adamic beings had despoiled the land, they were now offering God the reasons why He should not create another being!
The correct word is that the Angels were referring above to the Jinns who have been created by God 2000 years before the creation of Adam! And in the course of living on the Earth, they despoiled the land and killed one another . According to a prophetic hadith, when Allah saw this, he banned them to the banks of the seas of the earth.
For example we read in a Hadith: “The Jinn had been in existence for 2000 years and then they despoiled the earth. Allah then instituted war against them through the Angel and they were banned from land to the seas’banks!”
Reward System Is Everything
While the scholars who held that Allah Has created some humans before Adam mistaken the Jins for humans!. The Quranic reference for this is: And the Jinn we created before (Adam) from pure fire”
While the Jinn are created from Fire, the Angels were from Light and Man is from clay(in respect to Adam) and from semen in respect to Adam’s descendants! In the same vein, Satan (May he be cursed by Allah the more), is from among the Jinn and not from among the Angels as erroneously believed by some people.
For Satan’s constant devotion to Allah’s worship, he was elevated to live among the Angels in the heaven of the earth and to be their Imam too, till he was accursed due to his transgression against Adam through his analogy(Qiyas),that he was better than Adam, having being created from Fire and Adam from Clay, following Allah’s commandment to him and the Angels to prostrate for Adam for his knowledge of things which both the Satan and the Angels were oblivious of! Indeed, Satan is a Jinn and not an Angel.The Quranic evidence is Qur’an 18vs 50 thus:
“Behold! We said To the Angels,” Prostrate to Adam”: they prostrated Except Iblis. He was one of the Jinns, and he Broke the command of his Lord”
Stand Up For Teachers And Pay Them Their Due Homage
Another evidence from the Quran is that we read:” the Angel go against not the commandments of Allah but do exactly what they are commanded to do”.
From this second Qur’anic evidence, we realize that Angels do not sin and disobey not the commandments of their creator and if Satan had been one of them , he would not have sinned and disobeyed Allah in respect to his prostration to Adam!
Beware Of Unnecessary Use Of Analogy And Silly Comparison
It is an ingrained habit of man to want to justify his stand on every issue under the sun with analogy from near and far seemingly instances! This is even more poignant when his action is adjudged to be wrongly placed or when he is caught in disobedience. Silly comparison is then drawn from different angles and areas of life to justify his already faulty stance.
This is the reason man use the error or evil of others to beat down the effect of his own evil , saying if others are could not be penalized for what they had done in the past, he cannot either be called to account for his error! This is exactly how Satan had behaved when he was ordered to prostrate for Adam ! And he had been adjudged to be the first in the history to employ analogy as a defence for his intransigence.
Satan As The First User Of Analogy In History
The first being to use analogy or what is called logic was Satan! He did this to show that he was better than Adam, when Allah commanded him to prostrate for him saying:”I’m better than him, you created me from fire but created him from clay”.
While, Qiyas or analogy is good, a blanket one like the one used by Satan against Adam is bad. According to the Scholars of jurisprudence, analogies are two;the positive one that promotes good character and the negative one that increases evil .Satan instead of following the commandment of Allah like the Angel, employed logic against the Lord of the Logic who knows the end of every affairs and eventually became accursed!.Man needs to be wary of unnecessary and untimely employment of logic, analogy and what resemble the duo. For they can earn him eternal wrath like Satan, the accursed!
Notably, some people among the Islamic sects,most especially the Firqa-Dolla( the misguided ones) , believed that since Satan was made from fire, if he is later sent into the hellfire, fire will not burn him because, it will be like putting water into the sea!.Besides, some people believe that Satan will not enter the hellfire as Allah (S.A.W), Has employed him as a tool to misled others!(May Allah save us from such a thinking)!
The first argument against the above misleading thoughts is that, nobody who is destined to be in the hellfire, will never escape its burning effects,whether he is made from it or not!.In the glorious Quran, we read:”He will be thrown into al-Hutamah.And what will make you know al-Hutamah? .(Al-hutamah),is the Fire of Allah that burns the heart!
The second argument is that despite the fact that man is from semen I.e water, we have not seen a situation where when a man is mistakenly finds himself in a pool of water or inside a sea, the water will not negatively affect it?Definitely, water will slash his throat, engulf his brain and eventually massacre him!The same thing is applicable to the dweller of the hellfire including Satan!
Pray Until You Are Given Everything
On the second assumption that Satan is a tool of Allah to misguide man. Allah, in the first instance, does not command evil not to talk of employing Satan to misled people!.We read in the Quran :”Allah does not command evil…. “.In another vein, there is a rule in jurisprudence that ‘evil is not in the works of Allah but lies in what His works do!.For example, evil is not inherent in man but comes into being as a result of man’s handiworks!
Besides, any man that allows himself to be beguiled and misguided by Satan, apart from the analogue above, will enter the hellfire with the Satan!.We read in the Qur’an:” When Satan say to man;’disbelieve and when he disbelieved, Satan will say,’i absolve myself from you(I don’t know you),where I fear Allah, the Lord of the worlds”. Allah does not stop here, He said, “The end of both of them I.e, Satan and the one he mislead is that both of them will be in hellfire,while they dwell therein forever”
Oh our Lord,the Lord of the seven heavens and seven earths and what abound there, protect us, friends, families and relatives from every deed that will predispose us to hellfire, amin!