Introduction to the Study of The Holy Quran — Page 309
309 full development of the mental faculties of man was reached, God sent His revelation to the most perfect man of that generation, namely, Adam. This revelation was confined to a few social rules relating to the formation of a society and the provision of food and other means of maintenance for it. Those whose social sense was not yet fully developed refused to submit themselves to Adam. God punished them and gave Adam victory over them. For the future God decreed that Prophets would continue to appear and those who believed in them would identify themselves with Adam and his people and those who rejected them would identify themselves with the Jinn who had opposed Adam. Each Prophet is raised to help forward the intellectual and spiritual evolution of man. Those, who are opposed to the next stage of evolution and are not willing to submit to the limitations and regulations which God seeks to impose through His Prophet to help forward the process of evolution, reject the Prophet. In short, the Quran teaches that man’s physical creation and development are the result of a process of evolution and in the same way his intellectual development is also the result of a process of evolution. Adam was not the first human being but was the first human being whose intellect was capable of accepting and bearing the responsibility of revelation. The Quran nowhere states that God desired to create man and therefore created Adam. The Quran expressly states that God decided to appoint a "Vicegerent upon earth" and appointed Adam. This shows that at the time of the appointment of Adam as God’s Vicegerent on earth there were human beings dwelling upon the earth but none of them had become the recipient of divine revelation since their mental faculties were not yet fully developed. When the development of human intellect arrived at the stage where man became capable of forming a society and living in accordance with an organized system, God sent His revelation to Adam, who possessed the most highly developed intellect in his own age, and he thus became the first Prophet. He was not the first man but the first Prophet, and the revelation received by him comprised a few clear and simple social laws and a simple explanation of some of the divine attributes. At another place the Quran says: "And We did create you and then We gave you shape then said We to the angels, 'submit to Adam'. " 388 The verse means that God created man and then gave shape to his faculties and then commanded the angels to bow down to Adam. This verse also clearly shows that man had been in existence prior to the time of Adam. The development of man’s intellectual faculties indicates that before the appearance of Adam man had already passed through several stages of evolution. The verse indicates that after man was created his faculties developed from stage to stage and assumed different shapes and he began to be distinguished from the other animal creation around him and when his intellect was developed to a certain degree, Adam was created and God sent His revelation to him.