Adam and Eve: The Spiritual, Not Biological, Parents of Human Species

By T.O. Shanavas, New Age Islam 14 November 2022 Most Muslims believe Adam and Eve (Hawwa) were the very first of humankind on the face of the earth and that human species is a genetic descendant of this primordial couple. The foundation for the belief is verse 4:1 (O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women…). But this belief crumbles under scientific as well as Quranic scrutiny. Genetic bottleneck or Population bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events famine, earthquakes, diseases, etc. Such events can reduce the variation in gene pool of population; thereafter, a small population, with a smaller genetic diversity, fails to thrive due to disease, environmental challenges, and reproductive failures. Without a diverse gene pool, the viability of such a population gets reduced by 50% or greater. Eventually, this continuing deterioration of species vigor leads to its extinction. Small and isolated species populations are known to suffer dire consequences when a lack of genetic diversity exists. Detrimental genetic diseases are very common in small-interbred populations, and a genetic vulnerability of this nature coupled with a lack of genetic diversity can lead to the extinction of such a population. The smaller the population, the greater the probability it would disappear. The smallest possible population of human species is two people, in a situation where naturally genetic variation is extremely limited. Therefore, the survival of human species from two ancestors such as Adam and Eve is not plausible due genetic bottleneck. The human species would have become extinct due to this extreme population bottleneck. So where, then, do Adam and Eve fit in the evolutionary history of our species? Contradictory to commonly held view of Adam and Eve being the primeval parents of human species, a parallel reading of the verse with other verses guides us to an alternate conclusion that Adam and Eve are not the biological parents but the spiritual parents of human species. To determine the role played by Adam and Eve in the history of the human species, we need to understand the human soul-body relationship based on the Quran. A complex metaphor can be easily confused with reality. When we use pronouns such as “I” or “you,” we recognize the person based upon his voice and his/her body features. According to the Quran, the human soul is the spiritual center of the accountable human while the material body of flesh, blood, and brain that serve only as the visible human personification and a product of evolution. The material body functions as the robotic arm of the soul in the material world. Surgeons can transplant hearts, lungs, and pancreas, kidneys, hands, eyes, and even faces onto the soul’s outer garment. Surgeons will be transplanting laboratory-grown body parts into Homo sapiens sapiens. Still, each human soul maintains its individuality and acts in the material world as he or she did before surgery. Therefore, physical human body is only a machine with component parts that can be modified, or sometimes replaced. The dual nature of human body and soul is detailed in the Quran as well as in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. According to the Quran, the souls are created and everlasting. It is alive and movable. “God takes souls at the time of their death and those who have not died in its sleep. Then He retains those for whom He ordained death and releases the others until a specific time. There are indeed signs in that for a people who reflect.” (Qur’an 39:42) Hence, the material body can remain alive even when the soul is temporarily taken out from the sleeping body, thus showing our dual nature. Moreover, according to a saying (hadith) attributed to the Prophet, a fetus is alive but without a soul until the 120th day of intrauterine life, when the soul is breathed into a fetus by an angel.1 The verses 36:65 and 41:20–21 state that material body parts will testify against souls on the Day of Judgment: “This day [Judgment Day] We seal their mouths, and their hands speak to Us and their feet will bear witness concerning what they earned.” (36:65) “Their ears and their eyes and their skins will testify against them as to what they used to do. And they say unto their skins: ‘Why did you testify against us?’ They say: ‘God, who gave all things power of articulation, made us to speak.’” (41:20–21) So, while the human spirit is accountable on the Day of Judgment, its material body is not. Therefore, the human spirit is separate from the physical body which is a product of evolution on the earth. However, on the Day of Judgment, humans will be raised up with all parts of their body as they were on the earth. The chapter, “The Resurrection,” states: “Does man reckon that We shall not assemble his bones? Yes indeed, We are also able to shape again his fingertips.” (Qur’an 75:3–4). Within the Qur’anic enlightenment of dual nature of human—accountable soul and the physical body—the population bottleneck does not come into play. The verse 4:1 (“O mankind, venerate your Lord, who created you from a single soul, from it created its mate, and from the pair of them has spread abroad countless men and women.”) is not dealing with human physical body but creation of accountable male and female soul not yet clothed with the garment of biological flesh and skin. Out of these two souls, God created all other human souls. What the verse refers to here is the creation of real humans manifested as spirits, not the physical body with flesh and blood. Next, we will discuss the creation of the Prophet Adam. There are four steps in the creation of Adam, the first prophet of Islam: 1. The creation of the soul of Adam, 2. The creation of Adam’s outer garment, the physical body (Homo sapiens sapiens), 3. The infusion of Adam’s soul, and 4. The elevation of Adam as the first prophet. These steps are described in the verse 15:29 and verse 2:31: “So, when I shaped him and breathed into him my Spirit, fall down prostrating yourselves to him.” (15:29) “Then He gave Adam knowledge of the nature and reality of all things and everything…” (2:31). These verses describe the creation of Adam’s physical body and infusion of his accountable soul into it. Material Adam was an offspring with parents is suggested by the following verse: “God did choose Adam and Noah, the family of Abraham, and the family of Imran for high distinction. The one is the progeny of the other God heareth, knoweth.” (3:33–34) The phrase “offspring, one of the other (zurriy-yatam-ba’-zuhaa mim-ba’-z)” in verse 3:34 is binding on Adam, as the context clearly shows, which supports the theory that Adam and Eve were the offspring (Zurriyah) and had parents. Ordinary humans become prophets only when God reveals His wisdom to them. So, God elevated Adam to become the first of His long chain of prophets by teaching him “knowledge of the nature and reality of all things and everything.” (Qur’an 2:31). God blessed him to live in a spiritual “Garden” of ease, happiness, and innocence. The Qur’an proclaims that Islam is the religion of all prophets. This belief is based upon the following verses: “Truly the Religion with God is Islam . . .” (Qur’an 3:19) and “…God named you Muslims (الْمُسْلِمِينَ) before and in this Book…” If Adam and Eve were biological parents of humanity, incest must happen for propagation of human species. Incest is un-Islamic (Qur’an 4:23: (“Prohibited to you [for marriage] are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters…). So, there must exist human contemporaries with Adam an Eve (On this topic please read: The Creation of Adam and Human Species: A New Study). God’s religion, Islam, was revealed not only to Prophet Muhammad (s) but also to all other prophets. In fact, Islam is the religion for all creatures of visible and invisible world. That is why the Qur’an 72:14 states that there are Muslims among Jinns (“And among us are Muslims (الْمُسْلِمُونَ) and among us are the unjust…” “Say: We believe in God, and that which has been sent down to us, and that which has been send down to Abraham, and Ismael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which has given to Moses and Jesus, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, we surrender to Him,” (Qur’an 2:136) “Abraham was neither a Jew, nor yet a Christian. But he was a Hanif, a Muslim . . .” (Qur’an 3:67). According to these verses and few more, all prophets preached Islam, and so their followers are all Muslims. Spirituality in Islam means purifying one’s inner being and then on manifesting this inner change in daily life through ritual worships and daily conduct. Prophet Adam drew human species from animality to humanity regulating their life with Islamic ethics and morality; thereby human beings are called the Children of Adam in the Qur’an. Adam being the first prophet preaching Islam to human species drawing them out of animality to humanity, he and his mate became the spiritual parents of human species. So, Adam and Eve are not biological parents of humanity. ---- T.O. Shanavas is a native of Kerala, but is now based in the USA. He is the author of “Islamic Theory of evolution of Evolution The Missing Link Between Darwin and The Origin of Species.” Co-author of the book, And God Said, "Let There Be Evolution!": Reconciling The Book Of Genesis, The Qur'an, And The Theory Of Evolution. Edited by Prof. Charles M. Wynn and Prof. Arthur W. Wiggins. 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