Message #13518

[Ruhi_Rose]

"O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them has spread a multitude of men and women " 4:1

This verse tells that the beginning of life was a single soul,  and it's mate came out of it (Allah made it) ??

It clearly means that Allah created the first woman, eve / hawa from the ‘nafs’ of Adam (pbuh). So Adam (pbuh) Is Created From One Soul (arabic:Nafs) and His Spouse Is Created OUT Of That One soul .
right ???

Walaikum as-Salam, sister Muslima. 

As in V.4:1 - "O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward Allah in Whom ye claim (your rights) of one another, and toward the wombs (that bare you). Lo! Allah hath been a watcher over you." This obviously refers that Adam was created first and his mate, Hawa was created after him and from him.  But we cannot confirm how Hawa was created from Adam, whether of his 'nafs' or any other way.  This information is only known to Allah which He has not disclosed in the Quran.   So we will have to leave it there.   From what I understand, 'nafs' or 'soul' refers to the soul of the man or Adam, and the mate being created from it refers to it being created from the man.  But the exact method of creation is not defined.

Of course the biblical story of Hawa (Eve) being created from Adam's rib is completely unreliable.  The Quran does not specify that at all nor does it give us any reason to presume that concept.

Moreover neither the name Eve nor it equivalent Hawa are used in the Quran.  So maybe I shouldn't have referred to her as Hawa.  The expression "Adam's wife" is more appropriate.

For further explanation on the same subject, let me quote Professor Maududi's commentary with which I agree:

QUOTE.

"The details how out of that 'being' its mate was created are not known to us. The explanation which is generally given by the commentators of the Qur'an and which is also found in the Bible is that Eve was, created out of a rib of Adam. (The Talmud is even more detailed in that it states that Eve was created out of Adam's thirteenth rib on the left side.) The Qur'an, however, is silent on the matter and the tradition which is adduced in support of this statement does not mean what it is often thought to be. It is thus better that we leave the matter in the same state of ambiguity in which it was left by God, rather than waste our time trying to determine, in detail, the actual process of the creation of man's mate."

UNQUOTE.

The sensational story-telling approach of the altered/man-written bible, torah and talmud have given many detailed accounts of the creation of Eve.  It's also true that many Muslim tafsir writers and "ulemas" have borrowed such ideas from these altered man-written books.  But as sincere Muslims who follow the Quran only, we cannot accept such stories from other sources, if the contents of these stories do not conform with the Quran.   Therefore, we can only assert that Adam was created first, and later, his wife was created from him.  This is the point up to which the Quran confirms the matter to us.