Listen to a sample circle

What prevented you from prostrating?0:00

Benedict: Allah commanded Iblis to prostrate to Adam, and he refused. Allah asked him: “What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?” His answer was a comparison: “I am better than him.”

Eight ayat, recited by Mishary Rashid Alafasy: about seventeen minutes.

We are students, not scholars. If a question needs a ruling, take it to a scholar you trust.

Assalamu alaikum, and welcome to the IMATX halaqa.

Joining the call0:30

Salma: Assalamu alaikum, Benedict. Assalamu alaikum, everyone.

Yu: Wa alaikum salam, everyone. Alhamdulillah.

Viraj: Wa alaikum salam.

Victor: Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Benedict: Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah, Salma, Yu, Viraj, Victor. It is good to be together. Let us open with the du'a Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, tells His Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to say in Surah Ta Ha: my Lord, increase me in knowledge.

Du'a: Ta Ha 20:114 · Mishary Rashid Alafasy.

Wa qul rabbi zidni 'ilma. — And say, “My Lord, increase me in knowledge.”

Victor: Ameen.

Where we are1:09

Benedict: The previous passage opened Surah Al-A'raf. It gave us a Book to follow, and the earth with ways of living in it, and it ended: little are you grateful.

This passage goes back to the beginning, to the creation of Adam. Ibn Kathir reads it as a reminder of two things at once: the honour Allah gave our father Adam, and the enmity of the one who still envies us, so that we do not follow in his footsteps. Almost all of it is speech: a command, a refusal, an argument, a request, a vow. And the last word is Allah's.

Ayah eleven - shaped, and then the command1:44

Al-A'raf 7:11 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Would you read the translation for us, Yu?

Yu: And We have certainly created you, O Mankind, and given you human form. Then We said to the angels, “Prostrate to Adam”; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He was not of those who prostrated.

Salma: Sawwarnakum. A photographer in Arabic is a musawwir, from the same letters.

Benedict: The same root. Lane gives its first sense as something physical, bending a branch toward you to pick the fruit, and this form as shaping and fashioning. The verb comes four times in the Qur'an, and every time it is Allah shaping people, once in the wombs. One of His names comes from it, al-Musawwir, the Fashioner. Given you form sounds like a result. In Arabic it is something Allah did, to each of us.

Yu: Ibn Kathir explains why it says you, when the story is about Adam. Adam is the father of all mankind, so a favour to him is a favour to his offspring.

Viraj: Can I ask a basic one? The command was given to the angels. So was Iblis an angel?

Benedict: Surah Al-Kahf answers that. He was of the jinn, and he was among the angels when the command came. And al-Jalalayn says the prostration was a bow of salutation, not worship.

Victor: There's a narration in Sahih Muslim on this. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said that when a person reads a verse of prostration and prostrates, Shaytan goes off by himself and weeps. He says the son of Adam was told to prostrate and did, and he himself was told and refused.

Benedict: That narration is about the prostration after a verse of prostration, not every sajdah. But the contrast in it is the one in this ayah.

Ayah twelve - I am better than him3:52

Al-A'raf 7:12 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Viraj, would you read ayah twelve?

Viraj: Allah said, “What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?” Satan said, “I am better than him. You created me from fire and created him from clay.”

Benedict: This is the question we began with. Allah asks what prevented him. Iblis does not deny the command. He argues with it.

Salma: Ana khayrun minhu. We hear khayr every morning: sabah al-khayr.

Benedict: Khayr is the everyday word for good, and Lane notes that it is also used for superiority: this is better than that. We use it every time we say jazakallahu khayran. Iblis took the word for good and used it to put someone beneath him.

Yu: Ibn Kathir is blunt about the reply. He says this excuse is worse than the crime itself.

Benedict: Because the claim is that the better cannot bow to the lesser. Ibn Kathir says Iblis looked at the material Adam was made from, and not at the honour Allah had given him.

Viraj: There's a narration in Sahih Muslim. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said that the angels were created from light, the jinn from a smokeless flame of fire, and Adam from what has been described to you.

Benedict: So the material Iblis named is real. What he built on it is what the next ayah answers.

Ayah thirteen - made great, made small5:29

Al-A'raf 7:13 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Victor, would you read ayah thirteen?

Victor: Allah said, “Descend from Paradise, for it is not for you to be arrogant therein. So get out; indeed, you are of the debased.”

Salma: Two words every child knows. Kabir is big, and saghir is small.

Benedict: And here they face each other. The verb said to him, tatakabbara, to act arrogantly, is from the root of greatness, and Indonesian took it as takabur. Lane cites az-Zajjaj on this form: to consider yourself the most excellent of creation, with rights others do not have. It comes only twice in the whole Qur'an, and both are in this surah.

The verdict, as-saghirin, the debased, is from the root of smallness, which Lane gives as the contrary of greatness. In English, arrogant and debased do not sound like a pair. In Arabic they do. Ibn Kathir reads it as exact recompense: the one who reached for height is given the opposite of what he intended.

Viraj: I always thought arrogance meant showing off. Nice clothes, a nice car.

Yu: There's a narration in Sahih Muslim on that. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said that kibr is rejecting the truth and looking down on people.

Benedict: And in the same narration a man asks about liking good clothes and good shoes, and the answer is that Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. Both halves of the definition are in this passage. Iblis rejected a command he had just heard, and looked down on someone he had just met.

Ayah fourteen - give me time7:14

Al-A'raf 7:14 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Salma, would you read ayah fourteen?

Salma: Satan said, “Reprieve me until the Day they are resurrected.”

Anzirni. When we tell someone to wait, we say intazir, from the same letters.

Benedict: Same letters, a different form. Lane gives this one as granting someone a delay, and the same root gives the time a debtor is allowed to pay, in Surah Al-Baqarah. So we do not read it through the root's sense of looking. In English, reprieve can sound like a pardon. Here it is only more time.

Yu: Al-Jalalayn puts his request as, postpone my affair.

Benedict: And at this point he does not ask for forgiveness, and he does not say the refusal was wrong. He asks only for more time.

Victor: That one is for me. When I have done something wrong, my first move can be to put things off. Time only helps if I use it.

Ayah fifteen - granted8:17

Al-A'raf 7:15 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Would you read ayah fifteen, Yu?

Yu: Allah said, “Indeed, you are of those reprieved.”

Salma: Al-munzarin. The same letters as his request, again.

Benedict: Allah answers him in his own word. He asked, anzirni, reprieve me, and the answer is, you are of al-munzarin, those reprieved. He is given time, and nothing beyond it is promised.

Viraj: Why would Allah give him time at all?

Benedict: Ibn Kathir says Allah gave him what he asked for by His wisdom and His decree, which nothing prevents and nothing resists. Al-Jalalayn places it there too. We leave it there.

Yu: The way I understood it, being given time is not the same as being approved.

Benedict: That's right. Nothing in Allah's answer approves of him. He was given time, and so are we.

Ayah sixteen - on Your straight path9:19

Al-A'raf 7:16 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Viraj, would you read ayah sixteen?

Viraj: Satan said, “Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path.”

Benedict: He has the reprieve, and his answer to it is a vow.

Salma: Sirataka l-mustaqim. We ask for as-sirat al-mustaqim in every rak'ah.

Benedict: In Al-Fatihah, yes. Lane gives sirat as a road, a conspicuous road, one you can see. Iblis vows to sit by the very road we ask Allah to guide us along. Ibn Kathir reports Mujahid: the straight path is the truth. Al-Jalalayn reads it as the path that leads to Allah.

Victor: Ibn Kathir quotes a narration at this ayah. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said that Shaytan sat for the son of Adam on his roads: the road to Islam, the road to emigration, and the road of jihad. Each time, the man disobeyed him and went ahead.

Benedict: And on each road, what he says is what it will cost the man: his fathers' religion, his land and his sky, his wealth and his life.

Ayah seventeen - from every side10:35

Al-A'raf 7:17 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Salma, would you read ayah seventeen?

Salma: Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful to You.

Yu: Ibn Kathir reports Ibn Abbas on the four sides. From before, raising doubts about the Hereafter. From behind, making this life more attractive. From the right, confusion in religion. From the left, luring toward sins.

Benedict: Four kinds of temptation. Ibn Kathir also reports, from Ikrimah, that Ibn Abbas said above is not mentioned because the mercy descends from above. That is Ibn Abbas's comment, not the ayah's words. The ayah names four sides and stops.

Victor: There's a du'a in Sunan Abi Dawud. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, did not leave these supplications morning or evening. In one of them he asks Allah to guard him from in front and behind, right and left, and above, and seeks refuge in His greatness from being taken suddenly from below.

Benedict: Four sides in the vow, and six in the du'a.

Salma: And the last word, shakirin. We say shukran a hundred times a day.

Benedict: Indonesian kept it as syukur. Lane gives shukr as acknowledging Allah's goodness and obeying Him, so it is in word and in deed. And Ibn Kathir reports Ibn Abbas reading the grateful here as those who worship Allah alone. The previous passage ended on the same root: little are you grateful. Here we learn it is what Iblis set out to take.

Viraj: Subhanallah.

Ayah eighteen - get out, and who follows him12:31

Al-A'raf 7:18 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Benedict: Victor, would you read the last ayah?

Victor: Allah said, “Get out of Paradise, reproached and expelled. Whoever follows you among them, I will surely fill Hell with you, all together.”

Salma: Madh'uman. I don't hear that one anywhere else.

Benedict: You wouldn't. Its root comes only here, once in the whole Qur'an. Ibn Kathir collects the early glosses on it and the word after it: belittled and despised from Ibn Abbas, hateful and expelled from as-Suddi, cursed and despised from Qatadah. Reproached is the mildest of them.

Viraj: And the ayah says, with you, all together. Who is that?

Benedict: Ibn Kathir and al-Jalalayn read it as the close of the exchange. Iblis is expelled, and those of mankind who follow him share the punishment he is threatened with.

Yu: And Ibn Kathir closes with two ayat from Surah Saba: Iblis's guess turned out true, and he had no authority over them except as a test.

Your questions, and two for the discussion13:52

Benedict: We began with Allah's question to Iblis: what prevented you? His answer was a comparison that looked at what Adam was made from, not at the honour Allah gave him. The passage follows it to its end: the one who said I am better than him is put out, belittled. The honour in ayah eleven came first, before any command. And the word Iblis aimed at, at the end of his vow, was shakirin, the grateful.

Before we finish, any questions?

Yu: Mine is about ayah twelve. Ibn Kathir has a heading there, that Iblis was the first to use qiyas. At work I reason from one case to another every day. Was that his mistake?

Benedict: Ibn Kathir reports that from al-Hasan and Ibn Sirin, of the early generations, not from the Prophet. The mistake was not reasoning: Iblis used his comparison to oppose an explicit command, and al-Qurtubi separates that from legitimate analogy.

Viraj: Mine is about ayah seventeen. When I'm tempted by something, should I try to work out which side it's coming from?

Benedict: Keep it where Ibn Abbas kept it. Ibn Kathir reports him reading the four sides as four kinds of temptation. That helps us know them, but it is not a way to tell where Shaytan is coming from at a given moment. And the du'a Victor mentioned asks Allah for protection on every side.

Viraj, would you read our first question for the discussion?

Viraj: Iblis's claim to be better than Adam led him to reject a clear command, and the verdict in ayah 13 puts the one who was tatakabbara among as-saghirin, the humiliated. In everyday life, what makes it difficult for us to accept correction, and what would help us respond with humility?

Benedict: And Salma, the second.

Salma: Iblis vows to sit on Allah's straight path and wait. A narration describes Shaytan sitting on the road to something good, at the moment it was about to cost something. When have you felt discouraged from something good you meant to do, and what helped you go ahead?

Yu: That first one is not easy.

Benedict: Bring your own questions about these ayat to your circle, too.

Close15:59

Benedict: Let us end the way the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, ended a gathering. Abu Barza reports he called these words an expiation for what happens in a gathering. Salma, will you?

Salma: Subhanaka Allahumma wa bihamdika, ashhadu an la ilaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayk.

Benedict: Glory is to You, O Allah, and praise. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except You. I seek Your forgiveness, and I repent to You.

Yu: Next session, we go on from ayah nineteen, with Adam and his wife in the Garden, in sha Allah.

Viraj: And if the Qur'an is new to you, you don't need to know the story already. Start with one ayah.

Benedict: If you lead a halaqa of your own, the questions and the study notes for this passage are on the halaqa website, for your circle. Jazakumullahu khayran for listening.

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.