The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 104
CH. 2 AL-BAQARAH transgressed or committed a wrong. A is thus one who does an inappropriate or improper thing; or one who commits a wrong; or one who makes someone suffer a loss (Aqrab & Lane). Commentary: The word (garden) occurring in this verse does not refer to Heaven or Paradise but simply to the garden-like place where Adam was first made to live. It cannot refer to Heaven: firstly, because it was on the earth that Adam was made to live, as the words, I am about to place a vicegerent in the earth, occurring in 2:31 clearly indicate. Secondly, Heaven is a place from which no one who once enters it will ever be expelled (15:49), whereas Adam was made to quit the (garden) spoken of in this verse. This shows that the aor garden in which Adam first dwelt was a place on this very earth which was given this name on account of the fertility of its soil and the abundance of its verdure. Recent researches go to show that the place where Adam was made to dwell was the garden of Eden which lay near Babylon in Iraq or Assyria. PT. 1 man of knowledge was to defeat the very purpose for which he had been brought into being. The Quran and the Bible seem, however, to agree on the point that the tree was not a real one, but only a symbol, because no tree with either of the above characteristics, i. e. making a man naked or giving him knowledge of good or evil, exists on the face of the globe. So the tree must represent something else. As explained above, the word also means a quarrel. Says the Quran: But no, by thy Lord, they are not believers until they make thee judge in all that is in dispute between them (4:66). (evil Elsewhere, the Quran makes mention of two kinds of (1) aub (good tree) and (2) as tree) for which see 14:25 & 27. Pure things and pure teachings are likened to the former, and impure things and impure thoughts are likened to the latter. In the light of these explanations, the verse would mean: (1) that Adam was enjoined to avoid quarrels; (2) that he was warned against evil things, because although the verse does not specify evil or good, yet the prohibition cannot but refer to impure and evil things. The expression, eat therefrom plentifully wherever you will, indicates that the place where Adam lived had not yet come under the jurisdiction of anybody and was what may be termed "God's land" which was given to Adam who was thus made lord of all he surveyed. According to the Bible, the forbidden (tree) was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). But we learn from the Quran that after having eaten of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve became naked which means that, unlike knowledge which is a source of goodness, the tree was a source of evil, making Adam exhibit a The concluding clause, lest you be weakness. The Quranic view is of or wrongdoers, means that the evidently correct, because to deprive result of approaching the prohibited 104