Session 3 Briefing — Al-A'raf 19–25

Welcome0:00

Assalamu alaikum, and welcome to our third IMATX halaqa.

Last week we read ayat eleven to eighteen, where Iblis refused the command to prostrate, argued his case, and vowed to come at the children of Adam from every side. This week is ayat nineteen to twenty-five, and we watch him keep that vow, on the first two people there were.

We'll take the passage one ayah at a time, each one recited by Mishary Rashid Alafasy before we look at it. Along the way we will stop on one or two Arabic words in every ayah, so that the recitation starts to open up for you, and we will finish with two questions to carry into our discussion.

If you have any questions, bring them along to the halaqa.

Where we are0:49

Surah Al-A'raf tells the stories of earlier prophets and how their people answered them. The account takes us back to the beginning of human life.

Last week's passage ended with a claim: that most people would not be found grateful. This week's passage opens with something generous. Adam and his wife may live in the Garden and eat from anywhere in it. One tree is out of bounds, and that is the whole of the limit.

Ibn Kathir begins his comment by noting how much was permitted, before he says anything at all about the tree. That is worth holding onto as the passage narrows.

Ayah nineteen - the permission and the one limit1:28

Al-A'raf 7:19 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Allah tells Adam to dwell in the Garden with his wife, to eat from wherever the two of them wish, and not to approach one particular tree, so that they do not become wrongdoers.

Two words to listen for. The first is uskun, dwell. Its root is sakana, to become still, to settle. The same root gives sakinah, the calm that Allah sends down on the believers, and Indonesian keeps it in the phrase keluarga sakinah, a family at peace. So before the Garden is a place to eat from, it is offered to them as a place to be at rest.

The second is la taqraba, do not go near. The ayah does not say do not eat. It says do not approach. The Qur'an uses this same verb for its firmest prohibitions: do not go near indecency, do not go near the orphan's property, do not go near zina. Each time the line is drawn some distance before the act itself, not at it. Adam and his wife were given the same kind of line.

Ibn Kathir's summary is simply that they were allowed the Garden and all of its fruits, with that one exception. He notes he has already discussed this passage in Surah Al-Baqarah.

Notice the proportions. The permission is wide and is given in a few words. The limit is one particular tree. And the warning at the end is not about what they would lose. It is about what they would become. The word is zalimin, and we will hear its root again in ayah twenty-three, from their own mouths.

Most of what we are given is like that: broad, and mentioned once. It is the exception we end up thinking about.

Ayah twenty - the whisper3:34

Al-A'raf 7:20 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

Shaytan whispered to them, so as to make plain to them what had been covered from them. And he said: your Lord only forbade you this tree so that you would not become angels, or live forever.

The word for whispered is waswasa. Al-Qurtubi explains it as the faint, hidden sound, and says the Arabs used the same word for the low noise a hunter and his dogs make, and for the jingling of jewellery. Many of us know it already in Indonesian, as was-was, that low uneasy feeling.

Ibn Kathir reads the second half as a denial: so that you do not become angels, and do not stay here forever. In other words, Shaytan was claiming that eating would win them both things at once. Ibn Kathir connects it with Surah Ta-Ha, ayah one hundred and twenty, where Shaytan offers Adam the tree of eternity and a kingdom that never wears out.

The last word of the ayah is the second one to hear: khalidin, those who stay forever. Its root, khalada, means to remain. The Qur'an uses this form seventy-four times, and almost every time it is for the people of the Garden or the people of the Fire, who stay where they are. In Ta-Ha the tree itself is named from the same root, shajarat al-khuld, the tree of staying forever. So the thing Shaytan offered them was the very word the Qur'an keeps for what Allah alone gives. It is also the name Khalid, which many of us carry.

And notice what he goes after. He does not say the tree is good, and he does not say the command was wrong. He explains what Allah really meant by it.

That is usually the shape of it for us too. We rarely decide a limit is wrong. We decide we have understood why it was put there.

Ayah twenty-one - under oath5:54

Al-A'raf 7:21 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

And he swore to them both: I am truly one of your sincere advisers.

The first word is qasamahuma, he swore to them. It is a particular form of the verb. Lane's lexicon gives it as swearing with someone, or to someone, about a thing, and even as joining someone in a pact. The corpus lists this form only once in the whole Qur'an, here. So it is not a passing by-Allah. It is the oath that binds two parties together, which is exactly the closeness he was pretending to offer.

Ibn Kathir says he swore by Allah, and that the argument behind the oath was seniority. I was here before you, so I know this place better than you do. He reports Qatadah putting it almost in those words: I was created before you, I know more than you, so follow me and I will direct you.

The word he uses of himself is nasihin, sincere advisers. It is the word Indonesian took as nasihat, the advice an older relative gives you for your own good. The whole ayah is five words, and most of them are the costume.

Later in this same surah the word turns up twice more, and both times it is true. Hud calls himself a trustworthy adviser to his people, and Salih says he advised them. Those are sessions still ahead of us.

Ibn Kathir adds one plain remark here: someone who believes in Allah can be exactly the person who gets deceived.

Ayah twenty-two - brought down7:40

Al-A'raf 7:22 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

So he brought them down by deception. When they tasted the tree, what shames them became plain to them, and they began fastening the leaves of the Garden over themselves. And their Lord called to them: did I not forbid you that tree, and did I not tell you that Shaytan is an open enemy to you?

The verb is fadallahuma: he brought about their fall through deception. The commentators who explain the word read it as a lowering. Al-Qurtubi's first derivation is the root for letting a bucket down into a well on its rope, and al-Jalalayn puts it as bringing them down from the standing they had. The Arabic words page has the alternatives.

Al-Jalalayn explains the word for what became plain to them. They are called saw'at because exposing them shames the person, and the name of the thing is built from the harm of it being seen.

Ibn Kathir reports that the leaves were fig leaves, on the authority of Ibn Abbas with an authentic chain. And al-Jalalayn reads Allah's question as an affirmation rather than a request for information. He is not asking whether He warned them. He is reminding them that He did.

A small concession can sometimes lead to a larger wrong. That is an application we can draw from this ayah, not a claim the ayah itself makes.

Ayah twenty-three - the admission9:50

Al-A'raf 7:23 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

They said: our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will surely be among the losers.

Look at what is not in that sentence. No explanation. No mention of the one who had just sworn by Allah and lied to them.

The first thing they say after our Lord is zalamna anfusana, we have wronged ourselves. Zalamna comes from the root we heard at the end of ayah nineteen, in zalimin. Lane's lexicon gives the root's basic sense as putting a thing in a place that is not its own, and the same root gives zulmah, darkness, the going out of light. Indonesian uses it every day: zalim, and menzalimi diri sendiri is this exact phrase. So Adam and his wife take the word from the warning and turn it on themselves. They do not say we were deceived. They say we put something where it did not belong.

The last word is khasirin, the losers. Lane gives the original sense as loss in trade: a merchant whose capital comes back smaller than it went out, or does not come back at all. The Qur'an uses this form thirty-two times, always for the loss that matters most. It is what Indonesian calls rugi, but on the scale of a whole life. They are saying that without forgiveness the account does not balance, whatever else they might have.

Ibn Kathir reports ad-Dahhak saying that these are the very words Adam received from his Lord, the words Surah Al-Baqarah refers to when it says that Adam received words from his Lord, and Allah accepted his repentance.

Al-Baqarah says it plainly: Allah accepted his repentance. That is the answer to the asking in this ayah.

And Ibn Kathir reports a contrast, through Qatadah. Adam asked what would happen if he repented and sought forgiveness, and was told he would be admitted to the Garden. Shaytan did not ask for forgiveness at all. He asked for time. Each of them was given exactly what he asked for.

The passage sets Iblis's self-justification beside Adam and his wife acknowledging their wrong and asking for mercy. What each one asked for afterwards is the contrast the passage draws.

Ayah twenty-four - down, and what came with it12:29

Al-A'raf 7:24 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

He said: descend, enemies to one another. And for you on the earth is a place to settle, and provision, for a time.

The first word is ihbitu, descend, all of you. The root habata occurs eight times in the Qur'an, always as this one verb, and it is the word that opens the parallel account in Al-Baqarah, ayah thirty-six. It is also the word Iblis heard last week, in ayah thirteen: fa-hbit, then go down. The same command, in the same word, for him and for them. What differs is what each of them did before it came.

Ibn Kathir notes that the command was reported as addressed to Adam, to Hawwa, and to Iblis, and that some accounts add a snake while some scholars leave it out. He says, and Allah knows best, and leaves it there.

On the question of where on earth they came down, he is firm. Those accounts come from Israelite tales, and only Allah knows whether they are true. If the knowledge were of any use to people in their religion or their living, Allah would have mentioned it in His Book, and His Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would have mentioned it too.

That is worth hearing as a method and not only as an answer. A commentator with a gap in front of him says that it is a gap.

And notice what the sentence contains besides exile. A place to settle, mustaqarr. And then two words that go together: mata' ila hin, provision for a time. Mata' is the Qur'an's usual word for the goods of this life, thirty-five times, as in mata' al-hayat ad-dunya, the provision of the worldly life. And hin, Lane says, is a time in a vague sense, little or much, long or short. So the ayah gives them a place and a supply, and does not say for how long. Ibn Kathir reads that open term as terms already written. The earth is furnished, and the lease is not shown to the tenant.

Ayah twenty-five - and from it you will be brought forth14:50

Al-A'raf 7:25 · Recitation: Mishary Rashid Alafasy. Read the verses.

He said: therein you will live, and therein you will die, and from it you will be brought forth.

Ibn Kathir reads this alongside Surah Ta-Ha, ayah fifty-five: from the earth We created you, into it We return you, and from it We bring you out once more. On earth, he says, the children of Adam live, on it they die and are buried, and from it they are raised.

The word to hear is the last one, tukhrajun. Al-Jalalayn notes that it is read in two ways: takhrujun, you shall come forth, and tukhrajun, you shall be brought forth. Listen to the recitation again and you hear the second: it is passive. The root kharaja is the ordinary word for going out of a place, and the corpus lists this passive form three times, here, in Surah ar-Rum and in Surah az-Zukhruf, each time about being raised from the earth. Read the two ways together and they say one thing from two sides: we will leave the earth, and we will not be the ones doing it.

So take the passage as a whole. It opens with a permission and one limit. It turns on a whisper that rewrote the reason behind the limit, and an oath that made the lie sound like care. And it closes, after everything, not with a door shutting but with the ground itself described as somewhere we pass through.

The two people in this story were deceived, and they were sent down. What they did in between was to say plainly what they had done, and ask. That remains available to us this week.

What to bring on Tuesday16:41

Before we meet, here are two questions to think about.

First, Iblis never says the tree is good. He tells them what Allah really meant by forbidding it. Think of a rule you live by. When you have talked yourself out of one, was it the rule you argued with, or the reason behind it?

Second, Adam and his wife do not explain themselves and do not blame the one who deceived them. They say: our Lord, we have wronged ourselves. What makes it so hard to say that plainly to someone we have wronged, and what have you seen happen when somebody does?

We'll use these questions to begin our discussion. You're also welcome to bring questions about any of the ayat we've covered. No preparation is required.

Close17:29

We'll meet on Tuesday at seven in the evening, Central time, on Google Meet. The session will last an hour, and the joining link is on the session website.

Everyone is welcome, including anyone who is new to studying the Qur'an.

Next session, we'll continue from ayah twenty-six, where the surah turns to address the children of Adam directly, about clothing and about what really covers a person.

Thank you for listening. We look forward to seeing you at the halaqa, in sha Allah.

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.