2:34 And when We said to the angels, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam!”
Majestic and all-compelling is the God of the world and the world's folk, the Enactor, the renowned knower of the hidden, the eternal in beautiful-doing and tremendous in rank, never ignorant of what He knows, never regretful for what He bestows, never at a loss over what He has done. He is a Lord who adorns what He disapproves for some and makes ugly what He approves for others. He created the despairing Iblis from fire, gave him a place in the Lote Tree of the Final End, and sent the proximate angels of the Presence to seek knowledge from him. Despite such distinction and level, He wrote out the inscription of wretchedness for him and bound his waist with the sash of the curse. He pulled Adam up from dark dust, made the Higher Plenum the bearers of his throne, clothed him in the cape of exaltedness, placed the crown of generosity on his head, and said to the proximate angels of the Presence, “Prostrate yourselves before Adam!”
It has come in the traditions that Adam was placed on a throne that had seven hundred legs, the distance of one leg to another a seven-hundred year journey. The command came: “O Gabriel, O Michael, you chiefs of the angels! Lift up Adam's throne and carry it around the heavens so that his eminence and rank may be known to those who said, 'What, wilt Thou set therein one who will work corruption therein, and shed blood?'” [2:30].
Then they placed that throne before the Majestic Throne. The command came to the angels, “All of you go to Adam's throne and prostrate yourself before Adam.” The angels came and gazed upon Adam, and they all became drunk with his beauty.
A face adorned by the God of heaven
has no need for a hairdresser's touch.
They saw a beauty without end, the crown of “He created Adam in His form” on his head, the garb of “I blew into him of My spirit” [15:29] on his body, the embroidery of the solicitude of “He loves them and they love Him” [5:54] on the sleeve of his sinlessness.
Though we're strangers and our hearts are upset,
we're serving-boys of that world-adorning face.
Concerning the description of Adam, Wahab ibn Munabbih said, “When God created Adam, He created him in the most beautiful form and dressed him in the ornaments of the Garden. He put rings on ten fingers, anklets on his legs, and dressed him with bracelets on his arms. He attended to the crown and diadem on his head and forehead and gave him as title the most beloved of names to Him. He said to him, 'O Abū Muḥammad! Go around the Garden and look to see if anyone is similar to you or if I created any creature more beautiful than you.'
“So Adam wandered around in the Garden and became conceited. He strode proudly in the Garden. God deemed that beautiful in him, so He called to him from beyond the Throne: 'Be conceited, Adam, for the likes of you are conceited. I loved something, so I created it solitary for the Solitary.' Then God conveyed that conceit to his offspring. It is arrogance in the ignorant, pridefulness in kings, and ecstasy in the friends.”
Good fortune in the spirit and the world is not a game, and felicity is not to be bought. Iblis saw the suffering of the passing days and the toil of the work, but Adam went to paradise. Iblis had obedience without cease, but Adam received this address: