Ibn Arabi: 100,000 Adams

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

Shaykh Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 CE) said he saw a vision in which he was circling the Ka’bah:

ولقد أراني الحق تعالى فيما يراه النائم وأنا طائف بالكعبة مع قوم من الناس لا أعرفهم بوجوههم فأنشدونا بيتين ثبت على البيت الواحد ومضى عني الآخر فكان الذي ثبت عليه من ذلك لقد طفنا كما طفتم سنينا بهذا البيت طرا أجمعينا وخرج عني البيت الآخر فتعجبت من ذلك فقال لي واحد منهم وتسمى لي باسم لا أعرف ذلك الاسم ثم قال لي أنا من أجدادك قلت له كم لك منذ مت فقال لي بضع وأربعون ألف سنة فقلت له فما لآدم هذا القدر من السنين فقال لي عن أي آدم تقول عن هذا الأقرب إليك أو عن غيره فتذكرت حديثا عن رسول الله ص إن الله خلق مائة ألف آدم فقلت قد يكون ذلك الجد الذي نسبني إليه من أولئك

And God the Exalted showed me in a dream I was circling the Ka’bah with a group of people whom I did not recognize by their faces. They recited to us two verses. He remained on one verse and the other passed me by. So the one he remained on from that was, “We have circled this House as you have circled for years, all of us together,” and the other verse passed me by. I was amazed at that. Then one of them said to me, and he called me by a name I did not know. Then he said to me, “I am one of your ancestors.” I said to him, “How long have you been dead?” He said to me, “Forty-two thousand years.” I said to him, “Why did Adam have this number of years?” He said to me, “Which Adam are you talking about? This one who is closest to you or someone else?” I remembered a Hadith from the Messenger of Allah that Allah created one hundred thousand Adams. I said, “Perhaps that grandfather to whom I am related is from one of those.” (al-Futuhat ul-Makiyyah, Dar ul-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, v.6, p.369)

According to the kashf of Ibn Arabi there were many Adams before our Adam, as many as a hundred thousand. A similar idea is attributed to Imam Muhammad al-Baqir, rahmatullah alayh, who is reported to have said:

وترى أن الله لم يخلق بشرا غيركم بلى والله لقد خلق الله ألف ألف عالم وألف ألف آدم أنت في آخرتلك العوالم واولئك الآدميين

You see that Allah did not create any human beings other than you. Yes, by Allah, Allah created a million worlds and a million Adams. You are in the last of those worlds and those Adams (al-Tawhid li-Ibni Babawayh al-Saduq, ch.38, #2, p.271)

The discovery of hominid fossils that apparently date back hundreds of thousands and even millions of years lends credence to the idea that there were other Adams before our Adam. When Allah announced to the Angels that He is creating Adam and making him His khalifah or vicegerent upon the Earth, the Angels questioned its wisdom, saying,

أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ

Will you make upon it one who will spread corruption therein and shed blood?

(Surah 2:30)

It seems the Angels made this prediction about a new Adam and a new race that would emerge in his offspring on the basis of their observation of the many other hominids that preceded us and which were violent like us. According to Biblical chronology, accepted by most Christian fundamentalists and Orthodox Jews, the Earth and humanity are about six thousand years old. This is the doctrine known as Young Earth creationism. However, the Holy Quran does not confirm this chronology, nor do Muslims necessarily accept it. But Muslims, at least us orthodox Sunnis, do believe that Adam was created by God from clay without mother and father:

يَا إِبْلِيسُ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَن تَسْجُدَ لِمَا خَلَقْتُ بِيَدَيَّ

O Iblis! What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with both My hands?

(Surah 38:75)

اِنَّ مَثَلَ عِیۡسٰی عِنۡدَ اللّٰہِ کَمَثَلِ اٰدَمَ ؕ خَلَقَہٗ مِنۡ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَہٗ کُنۡ فَیَکُوۡنُ

Verily, the example of Jesus in the sight of Allah is like the example of Adam. He created him from soil then He said to him, “Be!” and he became

(Surah 3:59)

These Verses strongly support our belief that Allah created Adam without any parents. Some Muslims who unquestioningly accept the theory of human evolution and are uncritical of scientism have attempted to reinterpret these and other Verses of the Holy Quran. All humans on the planet today, numbering in the billions, settled in the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America and Australia, are all descendants of the Adam mentioned in the Holy Quran, and are therefore addressed every time Allah says therein,

يَا بَنِي آدَمَ

O children of Adam

Whenever this Adam lived, the one who along with his wife Eve was expelled from the Garden for eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, it is likely his children intermarried with some of those archaic humans who were already present on Earth. These archaic humans and the many hominids who came before them may be the descendants of those other Adams, according to Ibn Arabi, numbering a hundred thousand.

Allah and His Apostle know best!