Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:34
And [mention] when We said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblees. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The discourse on the interpretation of His saying — exalted be His remembrance: وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلا إِبْلِيسَ أَبَى وَاسْتَكْبَرَ وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ (34)
(And when We said to the angels, "Prostrate yourselves before Adam," they prostrated themselves, except Iblīs; he refused and was arrogant and was among the disbelievers.) (34)
Abū Jaʿfar said: As for His saying "And when We said," it is grammatically connected to His saying: وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلائِكَةِ (And when your Lord said to the angels). It is as though He — exalted be His remembrance — said to the Jews who were in the midst of the place to which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ emigrated, from among the Children of Israel, enumerating His favors to them and reminding them of His benefactions, in the manner that we have already described above: Remember My dealing with you when I favored you, and when I created for you all that is upon the earth, and when I said to the angels, "I am going to appoint upon the earth a vicegerent," and when I thus honored your father Adam with the knowledge, excellence, and honor that I bestowed upon him, and when I made My angels prostrate themselves before him and they prostrated themselves before him. Then He singled out from among all of them Iblīs, and by singling him out from among them He showed that he was one of them, and that he was among those who had been commanded along with them to prostrate themselves, just as He — exalted be His praise — said: إِلا إِبْلِيسَ لَمْ يَكُنْ مِنَ السَّاجِدِينَ * قَالَ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَلا تَسْجُدَ إِذْ أَمَرْتُكَ [Surah Al-Aʿrāf: 11-12] (except Iblīs; he was not among those who prostrated. He said, "What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?"). Thus He — exalted be His praise — informed that He had commanded Iblīs, among the angels whom He commanded, to prostrate himself before Adam. Then He — exalted be His praise — singled him out from that which He reported of them having done, namely the prostration before Adam, and removed him from the attribute with which He had described them, namely obedience to His command, and denied to him that which He had established for His angels, namely the prostration before His servant Adam.
Then the people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differed concerning him: does he belong to the angels, or does he belong to something else? Some of them said the following:
685 — Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Bishr ibn ʿUmāra, on the authority of Abū Rawq, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Iblīs belonged to a tribe of the tribes of the angels, who were called "al-Ḥinn," created from the fire of the scorching blaze (al-samūm), among the angels. He said: His name was al-Ḥārith. He said: And he was one of the keepers (khāzin) of Paradise. He said: And the angels were created from light, not like this tribe. He said: And the jinn who are mentioned in the Qurʾān were created from a blazing flame of fire (mārij), and that is the tongue of fire that is at its extremity when it blazes up.
686 — And Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Khallād, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ, on the authority of Ṭāwūs, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Iblīs, before he committed disobedience, was called "ʿAzāzīl" and belonged to the angels, and he was one of the inhabitants of the earth. He was one of the most devout of the angels in piety and one of the most learned among them, and that brought him to arrogance; he belonged to a tribe that was called the jinn.
687 — And Ibn Ḥumayd related it to us once more, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Khallād, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ, on the authority of Ṭāwūs — or Mujāhid Abū al-Ḥajjāj — on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās and others, in a similar manner, except that he said: He was an angel of the angels, named "ʿAzāzīl," and he belonged to the dwellers and populators of the earth; and the dwellers of the earth among them were called "the jinn," among the angels.
688 — And Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, saying: ʿAmr ibn Ḥammād related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, in a report that he mentioned, on the authority of Abū Mālik, and on the authority of Abū Ṣāliḥ, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās — and on the authority of Murra, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd, and on the authority of a number of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ: Iblīs was appointed over the kingdom of the lowest heaven, and he belonged to a tribe of the angels who were called "the jinn." They were called "the jinn" only because they were the keepers of Paradise (al-janna). And Iblīs, in addition to his sovereignty, was a keeper.
689 — And al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, who said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: Iblīs belonged to the noblest of the angels and the most honored of them in tribe, and he was a keeper over the gardens of Paradise (al-jinān), and he had sovereignty over the lowest heaven, and he had sovereignty over the earth. He said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: And His saying كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ [Surah Al-Kahf: 50] (he was of the jinn) — he is named only after the gardens (al-jinān) because he was a keeper over them, just as one says of a man: a Makkan, a Medinan, a Kūfan, or a Baṣran.
Ibn Jurayj said: And others said: They are a branch of the angels, a tribe of them, and the name of his tribe was the jinn.
690 — And al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, on the authority of Ṣāliḥ, the freedman of al-Tawʾama, and Sharīk ibn Abī Namir — one of the two of them or both — on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Among the angels there is a tribe of the jinn, and Iblīs belonged to it, and he governed what is between the heaven and the earth.
691 — And it was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥasan ibn al-Faraj, saying: I heard Abū Muʿādh al-Faḍl ibn Khālid say, saying: ʿUbayd ibn Sulaymān informed us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Muzāḥim say concerning His saying: فَسَجَدُوا إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ [Surah Al-Kahf: 50] (and they prostrated themselves, except Iblīs; he was of the jinn), he said: Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: Verily, Iblīs belonged to the noblest of the angels and the most honored of them in tribe. Then he mentioned the same as the first narration of Ibn Jurayj, word for word identical.
692 — And Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā related to us, saying: Shaybān related to me, saying: Sallām ibn Miskīn related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, who said: Iblīs was the head of the angels of the lowest heaven.
693 — And Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ [Surah Al-Kahf: 50] (And when We said to the angels, "Prostrate yourselves before Adam," they prostrated themselves, except Iblīs; he was of the jinn): he belonged to a tribe of the angels who were called "the jinn." And Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: Had he not belonged to the angels, he would not have been commanded to prostrate himself; and he was appointed over the treasury of the lowest heaven. He said: And Qatāda used to say: he hid himself (janna) from obedience to his Lord.
694 — And al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ (except Iblīs; he was of the jinn), he said: he belonged to a tribe of the angels who were called the jinn.
695 — And Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq related to us, saying: As for the Arabs, they say: the jinn is nothing but whoever hides himself (ijtanna) and is not seen. And as for His saying: إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ (except Iblīs; he was of the jinn), that is to say: he belonged to the angels, and that is because the angels hid themselves and were not seen. And Allah — exalted be His praise — has said: وَجَعَلُوا بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَ الْجِنَّةِ نَسَبًا وَلَقَدْ عَلِمَتِ الْجِنَّةُ إِنَّهُمْ لَمُحْضَرُونَ [Surah Al-Ṣāffāt: 158] (And they have set up a kinship between Him and the jinn, while the jinn know well that they will indeed be brought forth), and that is on account of the saying of Quraysh: that the angels are the daughters of Allah. So Allah says: if the angels were My daughters, then Iblīs would be among them, and they have set up between Me and Iblīs and his offspring a kinship. He said: And al-Aʿshā has said — al-Aʿshā of the Banū Qays ibn Thaʿlaba al-Bakrī — while mentioning Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd and what Allah bestowed upon him:
"And if anything could be eternal or be granted a long life, then Sulaymān, secured against time, would be that one.
My God created him and chose him above His servants, and gave him dominion over what lies between Thurayyā and Egypt.
And He made subservient to him nine of the jinn of the angels, standing at his disposal, working without wage."
He said: The Arabs refused, in their language, anything but that "the jinn" is everything that hides itself. He says: Allah named them the jinn only because they hid themselves and were not seen, and He named the Children of Adam "mankind" (al-ins) only because they were visible and did not hide themselves. So whatever is visible is mankind (ins), and whatever hides itself and is not seen is jinn.
And others said the following:
696 — Muḥammad ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: Ibn Abī ʿAdī related to us, on the authority of ʿAwf, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, who said: Iblīs never belonged to the angels even for the blink of an eye, and verily he is the forefather of the jinn, just as Adam is the forefather of mankind.
697 — And Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, who said: al-Ḥasan used to say concerning His saying: إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ (except Iblīs; he was of the jinn): He traced him back to his lineage. Then Allah said: أَفَتَتَّخِذُونَهُ وَذُرِّيَّتَهُ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِي وَهُمْ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ بِئْسَ لِلظَّالِمِينَ بَدَلا [Surah Al-Kahf: 50] (Will you then take him and his offspring as allies besides Me, while they are enemies to you? Wretched is the exchange for the wrongdoers!), and they multiply (reproduce) just as the Children of Adam reproduce.
698 — And Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Yaḥyā ibn Wāḍiḥ related to us, saying: Abū Saʿīd al-Yaḥmadī related to us, Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm related to us, saying: Sawwār ibn al-Jaʿd al-Yaḥmadī related to us, on the authority of Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, concerning His saying: مِنَ الْجِنِّ (of the jinn), he said: Iblīs belonged to the jinn whom the angels had driven away; then one of the angels captured him and brought him up to the heaven.
699 — And ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn related to me, saying: Abū Naṣr Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Khallāl related to me, saying: Sunayd ibn Dāwūd related to me, saying: Hushaym related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaḥyā informed us, on the authority of Mūsā ibn Numayr and ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd ibn Kāmil, on the authority of Saʿd ibn Masʿūd, who said: The angels used to fight the jinn, and Iblīs was taken captive while he was still small. He dwelt among the angels and worshipped together with them. When they were commanded to prostrate themselves before Adam, they prostrated themselves, but Iblīs refused. Therefore Allah said: إِلا إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ الْجِنِّ (except Iblīs; he was of the jinn).
700 — And Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama ibn al-Faḍl related to us, saying: al-Mubārak ibn Mujāhid Abū al-Azhar related to us, on the authority of Sharīk ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Namir, on the authority of Ṣāliḥ, the freedman of al-Tawʾama, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Among the angels there is a tribe called "the jinn," and Iblīs belonged to them, and Iblīs governed what is between the heaven and the earth. Then he disobeyed, whereupon Allah transformed him into an accursed devil (shayṭān rajīm).
701 — He said: And Yūnus related to us, on the authority of Ibn Wahb, saying: Ibn Zayd said: Iblīs is the forefather of the jinn, just as Adam is the forefather of mankind.
And the proof of the one who made this statement is that Allah — exalted be His praise — reported in His Book that He created Iblīs from the fire of the scorching blaze (al-samūm) and from a blazing flame of fire (mārij), and He did not report concerning the angels that He created them from any of that, and that Allah — exalted be His praise — reported that he is of the jinn. Therefore they said: it is not permissible to ascribe him to anything other than that to which Allah ascribed him. They said: And Iblīs has descendants and offspring, whereas the angels do not reproduce and do not multiply.
702 — Muḥammad ibn Sinān al-Qazzāz related to us, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, on the authority of Sharīk, on the authority of a man, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Verily, Allah created creatures and said: "Prostrate yourselves before Adam." They said: "We will not do it." Then Allah sent upon them a fire that burned them. Then He created other creatures and said: "I am going to create a human being from clay; prostrate yourselves before Adam." But they refused, whereupon Allah sent upon them a fire that burned them. He said: Then He created these and said: "Prostrate yourselves before Adam." They said: "Yes." And Iblīs was among those who refused to prostrate themselves before Adam.
Abū Jaʿfar said: These argumentations indicate the weakness of the knowledge of those who advance them. For it is not strange that Allah — exalted be His praise — created the various kinds of His angels from various kinds of His creation, differing in nature. Thus He created some from light, some from fire, and some from whatever He willed, besides that. And in the fact that Allah — exalted be His praise — omitted to report from what He created His angels, while He did report from what He created Iblīs, there is nothing that necessitates that Iblīs should fall outside their category. For it is possible that He created a kind of His angels from fire and that Iblīs belonged to them, and that He distinguished Iblīs therein by creating him from the fire of the scorching blaze (al-samūm), unlike the rest of the angels. Likewise, it does not remove him from the angels that he had descendants and offspring, on account of the desire and the lust that were built into him but were removed from the rest of the angels, on account of that which Allah willed for him of disobedience. And as for the report of Allah that he is مِنَ الْجِنِّ (of the jinn): it is not to be refuted that everything that hides itself from all gazes is called "jinn" — as we mentioned earlier in the poem of al-Aʿshā — so that Iblīs and the angels belong to it, on account of their concealment from the gazes of the Children of Adam.
The discourse on the meaning of إِبْلِيسَ (Iblīs)
Abū Jaʿfar said: "Iblīs" is a word of the form "ifʿīl," derived from "al-iblās," which is: despair of the good, regret, and grief. As:
703 — Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd related to us, saying: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra related to us, on the authority of Abū Rawq, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Iblīs — Allah made him despair (ablasahu) of all good and made him an accursed devil (shayṭān rajīm) as a punishment for his disobedience.
704 — And Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to us, saying: ʿAmr ibn Ḥammād related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, who said: The name of Iblīs was "al-Ḥārith," and he was called Iblīs only when he despaired (ablasa) and became confounded.
Abū Jaʿfar said: And as Allah — exalted be His praise — said: فَإِذَا هُمْ مُبْلِسُونَ [Surah Al-Anʿām: 44] (and then they are suddenly in despair), by which He means: that they are despairing of the good, full of regret and grief, as al-ʿAjjāj said:
"O friend, do you recognize an effaced remnant of an abandoned encampment? He said: Yes, I recognize it! — and he fell silent from sorrow (ablasa)."
And Ruʾba said:
"And on Thursday the army detachments appeared, and upon the faces lay pallor and despair (iblās)."
By that he means: dejection and gloom.
And if someone were to say: If Iblīs, as you said, is an "ifʿīl" form of al-iblās, why then was it not declined as a triliteral noun and given tanwīn? Then it is answered: Its full declension was omitted on account of its heaviness, since it is a name that has no equal among the names of the Arabs, and because that was so, the Arabs likened it to the non-Arabic (ʿajam) names that are not declined. Indeed, one has said: "marartu bi-Isḥāq" (I passed by Isḥāq), and one did not decline it with tanwīn, although it is derived from "asḥaqahu Allāhu isḥāqan" (Allah destroyed him); for since it was originally a name for non-Arabs, and the Arabs then adopted it as a name, it received in declension the same treatment as the names of the ʿajam and was not given tanwīn. Likewise "Ayyūb": it is merely a "fayʿūl" form of "āba yaʾūbu" (to return).
And the interpretation of His saying: أَبَى (he refused), by which He — exalted be His praise — means Iblīs, namely that he refused to prostrate himself before Adam and thus did not prostrate himself before him. وَاسْتَكْبَرَ (and was arrogant), by which is meant that he deemed himself great and held himself too proud for obedience to Allah in prostrating before Adam. And this, even though it is from Allah — exalted be His praise — a report about Iblīs, is nonetheless a rebuke to his likes among the creation of Allah, those who hold themselves too proud to submit to the command of Allah, and to conform to obedience to Him in that which He commands them and that which He forbids them, and to surrender to Him in that which He has established as a right for some of them over others. And among those who held themselves too proud to submit to the command of Allah, to humble themselves in obedience to Him, and to surrender to His decree in that which He imposed upon them of the rights of others, were the Jews who were in the midst of the place to which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ emigrated, and their rabbis who knew the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his characteristics and knew that he was a messenger of Allah. Then they held themselves — despite their knowledge of that — too proud to acknowledge his prophethood and to surrender to obedience to him, out of unjust rebellion against him and out of envy. Therefore Allah rebuked them with His report about Iblīs — who, in his arrogance toward the prostration before Adam, out of envy and rebellion against him, acted in a manner like their acting in their arrogance toward the surrender to Muḥammad, the prophet of Allah ﷺ, and to his prophethood, when he came to them with the truth from their Lord — out of envy and rebellion.
Then He described Iblīs in the same manner with which He described those for whom He set him as an example in arrogance, envy, and the refusal to submit to the one whom Allah had commanded them to submit to, and He said — exalted be His praise —: وَكَانَ (and he was) — that is to say: Iblīs — مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ (among the disbelievers) — among those who denied the favors of Allah toward him and His benefactions upon him, by opposing Him in that which He commanded him, namely the prostration before Adam — just as the Jews denied the favors of their Lord which He had bestowed upon them and upon their forefathers before them: that Allah fed their ancestors the manna and the quails, made the clouds shade them, and innumerable of His favors that befell them — in particular that with which He distinguished those who lived to witness Muḥammad ﷺ, in that they witnessed him and beheld the proof of Allah against them; and yet they denied his prophethood after they knew of it and knew his prophethood, out of envy and rebellion. Thus Allah — exalted be His praise — ascribed him to the disbelievers among the jinn, and placed him among their likes in religion and creed, even though he differed from them in kind and lineage. Just as He reckoned the people of hypocrisy to one another, on account of their common involvement in hypocrisy, even though their lineages and their kinds differed, and said: الْمُنَافِقُونَ وَالْمُنَافِقَاتُ بَعْضُهُمْ مِنْ بَعْضٍ [Surah Al-Tawba: 67] (The hypocrite men and the hypocrite women belong to one another), by which He means that they belong to one another in hypocrisy and error. So too His saying about Iblīs: he was among the disbelievers — he belonged to them in disbelief in Allah and in opposing His command, even though his kind differed from their kinds and his lineage from their lineages. And the meaning of His saying وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ (and he was among the disbelievers) is: that he — when he refused to prostrate himself — at that moment became one of the disbelievers.
And it has been related from al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas, on the authority of Abū al-ʿĀliya, that he used to say concerning the interpretation of His saying وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ (and he was among the disbelievers) in this place: and he was among the disobedient.
705 — Al-Muthannā ibn Ibrāhīm related to me, saying: Ādam al-ʿAsqalānī related to us, saying: Abū Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, on the authority of Abū al-ʿĀliya, concerning His saying: وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ (and he was among the disbelievers), he means: the disobedient.
706 — And it was related to me on the authority of ʿAmmār ibn al-Ḥasan, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, in a similar manner.
And that resembles the meaning of what we have said concerning it.
And the prostration of the angels before Adam was an honoring of Adam and obedience to Allah, not a worship of Adam, as:
707 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لآدَمَ (And when We said to the angels, "Prostrate yourselves before Adam"): the obedience was to Allah and the prostration was before Adam; Allah honored Adam by making His angels prostrate themselves before him.
