[2:35] And We said, 'Adam dwell and your wife in the Garden and eat thereof easefully where you desire; but do not come near this tree lest you be evildoers'.
He settled him in the Garden but with his entry established the tree of the trial. If not for the prior decree, this blossoming tree would have been changed to a withered one, its greenery dried out, its existence forgotten, and Adam's hand would not have reached to its leaves to piece them together onto himself, and what happened to him would not have happened. If this tree had kept growing so that his hand could not reach it, all that confusion would not have occurred in his affair, but what had been predetermined appeared from the decree. There was no place better than the Garden, no human being more intelligent than Adam, no better counselor than the words of the allusion of the Real to him. There was nothing odd (gharība) from [Adam] before he did what he did, and no resolve (ʿaẓīma) more powerful than his resolve. But divine power cannot be contested and the decree cannot be opposed (wa-lakinna'l-qudrata lā tukābara wa'l-ḥukma lā yuʿāra?a).
It is said when He said to him, 'dwell and your wife in the Garden and eat thereof easefully' there was an allusion to the fact that it is natural for created beings to dwell comfortably with other created beings, and to want to seek the good things of life. Alone, Adam (ʿa) had every good and well-being, but when one like him, the spouse, came, the fangs of sedition (anyāb al-fitna) appeared and the door to tribulation (bāb al-miḥna) was opened. When He dwelled together with Eve, he followed her in what she suggested to eat and what happened, happened. Indeed it is said:
There is an ancient disease
in the children of Adam,
which is the youthful passion
of one human being for another.
[Section] Whenever anything is prohibited to the son of Adam, his urgings to approach it increase. Everything was permitted to Adam (ʿa) in the Garden - only one tree was prohibited. In what has been transmitted about this, there is no mention of his hand reaching out towards anything that was permitted to him. [Rather] he lost his patience and plunged into what was prohibited to him - this is the attribute of created beings.
[Section] [God] gave information only on the end result of placing Adam in the Garden and doing what led to his expulsion from it. When He said, 'I am appointing on earth a vicegerent' [2:30], how could [Adam] have remained in the Garden?
It is said Adam (s) became the object of praise (maḥmūd) for the angels and the object for prostration (masjūd) for all. On his head was the crown of communion (wuṣla), on his waist the belt of closeness (qurba), and on his neck the necklace of nearness (zulfa). There was no one above him in rank (rutba), no individual like him in high status (rifʿa). The call was going out at every moment continuously for him, 'O Adam, O Adam!' But before nightfall his clothes were stripped from him, his intimacy robbed and the angels were driving him violently to leave without delay:
I thought I was safe but He ordained for me
a ruse from my place of security.
Like this are those
who think themselves safe from lovers.
When Adam (ʿa) lost his way, he did not remain but an hour and left with a thousand rebukes. It was as is said:
To Allah belongs the good deeds of youthfulness.
They set out in the morning
like kings and return at night
like paupers.
[Section] He prohibited him from approaching the tree by His command (bi-amrihi), and from this cast him away by His compelling force (bi-qahrihi), and disguised him with what He had hidden in him of His secret (bi-sirrihi).