Appearance
The Covenant: “Am I not your Lord?”
وَإِذْ أَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِنۢ بَنِىٓ ءَادَمَ مِن ظُهُورِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَأَشْهَدَهُمْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ ۖ قَالُوا۟ بَلَىٰ ۛ شَهِدْنَآ ۛ أَن تَقُولُوا۟ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ إِنَّا كُنَّا عَنْ هَـٰذَا غَـٰفِلِينَ
(7:172) When your Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their descendants and made them bear witness over themselves, [He said to them,] ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes indeed! We bear witness.’ [This,] lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Indeed we were unaware of this,’
The question
When God took the descendants of the Children of Adam from their loins and made them bear witness, “Am I not your Lord?” — did this happen in a realm before this world (the world of pre-existence, ʿālam al-dharr), or does the verse only describe our condition in this world?
Views answered: the opponents of the world of pre-existence (some exegetes), the proponents (most scholars of hadith and some exegetes)
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan first explains the verse phrase by phrase: God separated the Children of Adam from one another, made each of them witness his own need of his Lord, and took their acknowledgement — so that no one could say on the Day of Resurrection that they were unaware, or that they only followed their fathers. It then sets out a long debate. The opponents of the world of pre-existence say the verse describes our life in this world and raise six objections to the narrations about it; the proponents answer each. Al-Mizan then examines both: the proponents' picture of tiny particles drawn from Adam's loin and returned to it is logically impossible and cannot complete God's argument; the opponents' view does not fit the verse's “When your Lord took”. Its own view is that every human being has, besides this gradual worldly existence, an existence with God in which all are present together and each witnesses his Lord directly; the verse refers to that realm, which precedes this one not in time but in existence. In the narrations it shows that the reports of the covenant support this, and that an authentic narration refutes the opponents' reading.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- “When your Lord took…”: the meaning of taking
- “He made them bear witness over themselves”
- Not just what people observe in this world
- Three events, and their purpose
- A question and answer
- The opponents of the world of pre-existence, and their six objections
- The proponents' responses
- Examining the proponents' view
- Why the “particles” picture cannot complete God's argument
- Examining the opponents' view
- Al-Mizan's own view
- An existence with God before this world
- Free of both sets of problems
- Back to the verse
- Narrations: what “the world of particles” means
- An authentic narration against the opponents' reading