Tafsir alTustari Sura البقرة Ayah No. 30

…I am appointing on earth a vicegerent…He answered:God, Exalted is He, before he created Adam

said to the angels I am appointing on earth a vicegerent, and He created Adam from the clay of might consisting of the light of Muḥammad

, and He informed him that his self which incites evil (al-nafs al-ammāra bi’l-sūʾ) would be his worst enemy, and that He had created it so that he conduct it [on the path] to Him, accordingto his knowledge of it, regarding notions (khawāṭir) and impulses (himam) [which arise in it], and that he [Adam] conduct it in such a way as to remain utterly dependent on Him, seeking refuge in Him. If He shows it an act of obedience, it should respond by saying, ‘O help me!’, and if it is moved to an act of disobedience, it should cry out, ‘O protect me!’ If it is moved to a blessing, it should say, ‘Grant me a share of it!’ If He says to it, ‘Be patient in the face of tribulation’, it should respond saying, ‘O, grant me patience!’ His [man’s] heart should not entertain the slightest whispering (waswasa) of the self without abandoning it and returningto its Lord. God, Exalted is He, made the natural propensity (ṭabʿ) of the self such that it is passive when faced with commandments and active when faced with prohibitions. However, He commanded it to respond with passivity when inclined to activity, and to be active when inclined to passivity, with the words, ‘There is neither power nor strength except in God’, that is, there is no power to resist disobeying Him except through His protection, and no strength to obey Him except with His aid.Then He ordered him [Adam] to enter the Garden and eat from it at ease wherever he wished, after which He decreed to him that he may not eat from the Tree. When he entered the Garden and saw what he saw there, he said, ‘If only we could stay here forever; yet, indeed, we have an appointed time that extends to a known limit.’ Then Satan approached him, on account of his heart’s accommodating itself (musākana) to the whispering of his lower self, and said, ‘Shall I lead you to the tree of eternity that you long for in this abode, which is the means to attain immortality and everlastingness?’, and he added, Your Lord only prohibited you both from this tree, lest you become angels or immortals [7:20]. His argument was just a form of deception. Thereby God, Mighty and Majestic is He, inflicted on [Adam] the Adversary’s whispering, in accordance with His pre-eternal knowledge concerning him, and in fulfilment of what He had preordained and justly decreed for him. The first instance of forgetfulness (nisyān) that took place in Paradise was the forgetfulness of Adam, and it was a deliberate forgetfulness, not accidental, that is, it signified his abandonment of the Covenant. Sahl said: I was informed in an account of one of the Followers (tābiʿūn) that he [the Prophet] said that forgetfulness in the Book of God, Mighty and Majestic is He, is of two kinds. [One is] abandonment,as for example in Sūrat al-Baqara, Or we cause to be forgotten [2:106], when it means: ‘We abandon it and we do not abrogate it’; and also in His words: Forget not kindness between you [2:237], meaning: ‘Do not abandon kindness between yourselves’; and likewise in Sūrat Ṭā Hā, but he [Moses] forgot [20:88], meaning: ‘He has abandoned the Covenant’. Another example occurs in Sūrat al-Sajda, in the words, Taste [now], for your having forgotten the encounter of this day of yours, and We [too] shall forget you [32:14], meaning: ‘We shall abandon you to your punishment as We lifted Our protection from you when you persisted in committing sin.’He continued:The other meaning of forgetfulness is when someone cannot remember because the informationleaves his memory, exemplified by his [Moses’] words [narrated] in Sūrat al-Kahf, I did indeed forget the fish [18:63], meaning: ‘I couldn’t keep it in my memory’ — this is due to the fact that God, Exalted is He, has made Satan a partner with the natural self (nafs al-jibilla) regarding the desires that it has which have nothing to do with God, Exalted is He. Another example is in Moses’ words to Khiḍr, Do not take me to task on account of that which I forgot [18:73], meaning: ‘That which escaped my memory’. Also He said in Sūra Sabbiḥ [Sūrat al-Aʿlā], We will have you recite [the Qurʾān], so you do not forget. [87:6] — that is: ‘We shall have you memorise [the Qurʾān], so that you do not forget it’.So this [Adam’s forgetfulness and Satan’s access to him] was because of his preoccupation with his own devising (tadbīr). His thought [for everlasting life] did not involve any considered reflection which might have made it a form of worship, but rather it was a kind of thinking that springs from a disposition (ṭabʿ) in his self (nafs al-jibilla). God, Exalted is He, decreed when He created the heavens and the earth, that if He sees in a person’s heart something in which he is acquiescing other than Himself, that person will be overpowered by Satan, who will whisper in his breast (ṣadr) to his lower self, by [generating] a desire, such that it [the nafs] will invite him to pursue it. Or he may turn back to his Lord seeking refuge in Him and clinging to His protection (iʿtiṣām). However, in his native land, God concealed His remembrance from [Adam] until after he had committed that which was forbidden, so that His prior knowledge concerning that which He had forbidden him could be fulfilled; and Adam’s act [of disobedience]then became a habit among his progeny up until the Day of Resurrection. In reality, God did not mean by this the matter of eating [from the tree], but rather the acquiescence (musākana) of the desire (himma) in something other than Him. Phrased another way, [Godis saying]: ‘He [man] should not concern himself with anything other than Me’. Adam

was not protected from the desire (himma) and the act (fiʿl) in Paradise, so what befell him, befell him for that reason. Similarly, he who claims what is not his, while his heart appeases him by entertaining the desire of his lower self, will be afflicted with God’s abandonment (tark), Mighty and Majestic is He, notwithstanding the fact that God naturally disposed his lower self to it, unless He has mercy upon him by protecting him from his own devising (tadbīr), and helps him against his enemy, that is, his self that incites to evil. The people of Paradise, when they are in Paradise, will be protected from the planning (tadbīr) that they were accustomed to in the abode of this world. Yet Adam, when he was placed in Paradise, was not protected from his heart’s acquiescence in the planning of his lower self for immortality. Do you not see that calamity (balāʾ) befell him because of the reliance (sukūn) of his heart upon what his lower self whispered to him? And so desire (hawā) and lust (shahwa) overwhelmed knowledge (ʿilm), the intellect (ʿaql), lucidity (bayān) and the light of the heart (nūr al-qalb), on account of that which God, Exalted is He, had preordained. Thus the end of the situation was as the Prophet

foretold when he said: ‘Truly passion and desire overwhelm knowledge and intellect’.

Tafsīr al-Tustarī, trans. Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler
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