Philosophy
Hossein Atrak
Abstract
Introduction
One of the disputed stories in the Qur'an, which is related to the discussion of the infallibility of the prophets, is the story of Adam. Regardless of the controversies about whether this story is real or symbolic, the appearance of these verses indicate Adam's disobedience to God's command. ...
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Introduction
One of the disputed stories in the Qur'an, which is related to the discussion of the infallibility of the prophets, is the story of Adam. Regardless of the controversies about whether this story is real or symbolic, the appearance of these verses indicate Adam's disobedience to God's command. A group of Islamic theologians, who believe in the absolute infallibility of the prophets, did not consider this disobedience of Adam as a sin and tried to justify his disobedience based on the concept of Taki Awla (abandoning a better act and doing good one). The purpose of this article is to examine the strength of this justification and criticize it.
Methods and Materials
This article has been done by descriptive-analytical method and collecting information from library sources.
Results and Discussion
In this research, the most important justification of Islamic and Shiite theologians for Adam's disobedience in eating from the forbidden tree, i.e. Tarki Awla or disobeying God's advisory prohibition was investigated. First, it was pointed out that Adam's action was not an instance of Tarki Awla, but it was the commission of God's compulsory prohibition. And since according to the Usulian rules, divine prohibitions indicate the existence of corruption in the prohibited act, it should be concluded that committing God's prohibition in any case, whether it is a compulsory, advisory or Tanzihi prohibition, is intellectually wrong, and committing a wrong act is not compatible with the prophets' infallibility thought.
In the following, the claim that God's command to Adam was advisory was examined. By stating the definitions and criteria of advisory prohibition mentioned in ʿIlm al-Usūl and applying them to Adam's actions, I came to the conclusion that God's command to Adam was not advisory.
Then, by proposing another fundamental discussion in ʿIlm al-Usūl that the negative imperative verb has initial semantic appearance in forbiddance unless there were some evidences indicating that action is permissible, it was shown that God's command to Adam was compulsory prohibition. Then, the evidences mentioned in the verses 117-119 of Surah Taha that Shia theologians claimed for being God's prohibition advisory was investigated and it was shown that the divine warning to Adam for leaving paradise and falling into hardships cannot be the proofs of being God's prohibition of eating from the tree as advisory prohibition.
In addition, the words such as disobedience, misleading, and injustice used in the Quran about Adam's actions have initial appearance in violation of God's compulsory prohibition and committing a sin.
On the other hand, on the assumption of accepting the justification of Tarki awla regarding Adam's disobedience, it seems that this justification is still incompatible with the theory of the prophets' absolute infallibility in the Shi'ite tradition. Because accepting that Adam's action was an instance of Tarki awla is in the meaning of accepting that he committed a mistake and was tempted by Satan, which the reasons for infallibility in the Shia theory are against both.
Conclusion
The final result is that, according to the author's opinion, the justification of Tarki Awla and being God's command advisory is not successful in defending the infallibility of Prophet Adam, and it is better to carry these verses in the same apparent meaning according to the principle of apparent authenticity or use other justifications for Adam's action that are mentioned in theological sources, such as: committing the prohibition of God in heaven, or the omission of a noun i.e. the children of Adam, or disobedience due to forgetfulness or error, etc. Of course, deciding on their strengths and weaknesses requires another research.
