Who is Adam? Who is the Khalifah in the Earth?

In the language of Imam Mohammed Adam is the common type of our human nature. Adam represents the Sacred Life inside each and every human being.  The Imam has said, --



*Imam Faheem Shuaibe

"It is more important to understand Adam as a type rather than a person or individual. The Adam that G-d is talking about in Genesis before the Quran and the Adam that G-d is addressing...in the Quran is the plural figure that represents all of us in the beginning."[1] 

"The story of how God created the first person, that's the story of how God created every person."[2]
 
"Adam actually represents all of us. All people."[3]
 
"Adam is the prototype of the original humanity."[4]

"Adam is really naming nothing but our common human identity.  The common human constitution that we all have is called Adam."[5]

"God revealed to him and made him the head of the people, so they say Adam was a prophet.  So we accept that Adam is a prophet, but not in the proper sense; only by interpretation.  Adam is prophet only by interpretation.  Ok, so Adam actually represents all of us.  All people." (see footnote 7)

 

In essence Adam is the name of our Abstract, Real, True Nature.

So how are we to understand Imam Mohammed's statement "The Human Being was on the earth a long time before Adam was on the earth" without deeming it to be false or contradictory.



One way is to look at it through the lens of the Quran and the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad coupled with Imam Mohammed insight - "Exactness in Scripture is Abstract",

Quran:15:26-30

26. We created man from sounding clay from mud molded into shape; 27. And the Jinn race We had created before from the fire of a scorching wind. 28. Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create man from sounding clay from mud molded into shape; 29. "When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit fall ye down in obeisance unto him." 30. So the angels prostrated themselves all of them together:

When we apply the insight "Exactness in Scripture is Abstract", what arises as an insight is that when these verses are taken as figurative expression it becomes a scientific statement about the historical, anthropological, civilizational development of man.

In the verse

26"We created man from sounding clay from mud molded into shape"

 

An-nas, just like the English word "man" is singular as well as plural.  An-nas labels human beings as a collective group and also distinguishes them as a category of life separate from minerals plants and animals (none of which advance their species nor show their special advancement by their historical relationship to clay).  So "We created man from sounding clay from mud molded into shape" means his civilizational development began with Clay (pottery, bricks for structures, cuneiform writing, etc.).  That being said, even so, it is likely that the same mineral contents of clay are found in the human body.

In the verse

28."Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create man from sounding clay[6] from mud molded into shape;"

 

using the same insight, this verse also scientifically addresses the historical, anthropological, civilizational development of man.  By alluding to the fact that there was a period in the life and history of man when he was civilizationally in his infancy, a time when he could be considered as "not being spiritually enlightened"; as not being inspired by Allah in the prophetic or revelatory sense.  There was a time when the human being, thought alive biologically, was not yet spiritually inspired or guided by "The Word of G'd".

Supporting this is Allah's statement in the Quran that

10:4."It is He Who begins the process of Creation and repeats it".

So from the insights of the Imam he tells us if you want to know how Allah did it the first time look at how it is repeated.  Thus look at the baby crawling around at our feet. Is that baby spiritually enlightened? No! Does that baby have in it the human nature? Yes!  So that baby at our feet today is just like human civilization was in its infancy.  That human being was Adam (by nature) but not Adam (inspired and enlightened by revelation).  So the Imam's statement is true. "The Human Being was on the earth a long time before Adam was on the earth." And the creation bears witness.

The Imam also said, "Adam is a baby, not a baby physical baby, Adam is a social baby.  A baby, but he is also the building block, he is father.  How beautiful the language is.

Adam is a step in the building of civilized society."[7]

Hadith: Book 032, Number 6319: , Anas reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ..

Anas reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: When Allah fashioned Adam in Paradise, He left him as He liked him to leave him. Then Iblis roamed round him to see what actually that was and when he found him hollow from within, he recognized that he had been created with a disposition that he would not have control over himself."

We're not focusing on applying the insight on "exactness" from the Imam to this report. However, the hadith supports the fact of the verse which says

27"And the Jinn race We had created before from the fire of a scorching wind."

Namely, it shows that Iblis (who was a Jinn) was there at the beginning of man's creation (this to is a figurative expression requiring scientific interpretation).  Also when the report says that, "When Allah fashioned Adam in Paradise, He left him as He liked him to leave him", it supports the fact that though the human being had form (biological existence on earth in the anthropological interpretation) he was not yet inspired by Allah.  

Other traditions in Al-Islam say that "Allah shaped Adam into a human being, and he remained a figure of clay for 40 years".  40 is a number to represents maturity in the "first form of life" as is stated in the Quran

 

46:15.

We have enjoined on man Kindness to his parents: in pain did his mother bear him and in pain did she give him birth.  The carrying of the (child) to his weaning is (a period of) thirty months.  At length when he reaches the age of full strength and attains forty years, he says "O my Lord! grant me that I may be grateful for Thy favor which Thou hast bestowed upon me and upon both my parents and that I may work righteousness such as Thou mayest approve; and be gracious to me in my issue.  Truly have I turned to Thee and truly do I bow (to Thee) in Islam." First biological maturity then the spiritual relationship with Allah develops.  Specifically, the Imam Said that this 'Maturity at forty" means that if one is going to inspired it will occur either by or about the time he's forty. 

 

When did Imam Mohammed (ra) come to Tauhid and how old was he when he became our leader?[8]

The "first life/second life hypothesis"; the "Human before Adam" dichotomy is also confirmed in the life of Muhammad ibn Abdullah becoming the Prophet

10:16. Say: "If Allah had so willed I should not have rehearsed it to you nor would He have made it known to you.  A whole lifetime before this have I tarried amongst you: will ye not then understand?". 

We know that Muhammad ibn Abdullah was 40 years old (a mature human being) before he received the last revelation and became a Prophet (Adam).



So in the final analysis Prophet Muhammad is the actual and perfect fulfillment of the Story of Adam.  The Prophet was and is the Original Human Nature Manifest Perfect and Alive in the flesh on Earth[9] as Khalifah in the earth.

 "If ALLAH had stopped the creation short of man, then it wouldn't make sense. Just like if He would have stopped the creation of us short of a head, and just left a neck up there alive, and no head. A neck with no head. That how  I would see the universe if God had stopped short of us, and left the universe just like that, nothing but a corpse with no head on it. ALLAHU AKBAR.



When man is created with free-will, and rational ability to go back to his job and get the understanding of the whole scheme, then it all makes perfect sense. That is why we believe that ALLAH created the universe for who? For Muhammad, PBUH

It didn't mean that He didn't create it for Adam. Yes He did, he created it for Adam, but Adam is in Muhammad. And when Adam gets in Muhammad, Adam gets whole, cause his real destiny is to be complete in Muhammad."[10]

1.] Ramadan Session 2002 pp. 10-11 of 49

2.] -P. 28 Wisdom of W. D. Mohammed, Part 2
3.] Imam W. D. Mohammed January 22, 1978 The Great Prophetic Figures In Scripture
4.] Imam W. Deen Mohammed Ramadan Session in Athens, Georgia February 25, 1995
5.] May 11, 1997 "Leadership in Community Life" Aquinas College Grand Rapids, Michigan
6.] "He created man (Adam) from sounding clay like the clay of pottery." (Chapter 55:Quran).
7.] Great Prophetic Figures In Scripture
8.] What is the sign in the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr and Al-Hajj Malik El Shabazz at 39 years old?
9.] John 1: 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth
10.] Imam W. Deen Mohammed In Newark, NJ  -  Jumu'ah  March 26, 1993

By: Imam Faheem Shuaibe Masjidul Waritheen, 1652 47th Avenue Oakland, CA 94601 Phone: 510.436.7755

To contact Imam Faheem Shuaibe

  

Wallace D. Muhammad; October 30, 1933 – September 9, 2008), also known as "W. Deen Mohammed" or "Imam W. Deen Muhammad", was a progressive African American Muslim leader, theologian, philosopher, Muslim revivalist and Islamic thinker (1975–2008) who disbanded the original Nation of Islam in 1976 and transformed it into an orthodox mainstream Islamic movement.