Appearance
What Were the Names Taught to Adam?
وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الْأَسْمَاءَ كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمْ عَلَى الْمَلَائِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنبِئُونِي بِأَسْمَاءِ هَٰؤُلَاءِ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
And He taught Ādam all the names, then presented them to the angels and said, “Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful.” (2:31)
The question
What were the names, all of them, that God taught Adam and that made him worthy of vicegerency: the names of things, the words of a language, or something else?
Views answered: al-Ṭabrisī, al-Ṭabarī (reporting Ibn ʿAbbās), Kashf al-Asrār, and the reading of the names as the gift of speech · With: ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī
Jawādī Āmulī’s argument
Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī holds that the names are the unseen realities of the world: living, conscious beings hidden with God, the “treasuries” and “keys of the unseen” from which everything in the heavens and the earth descends. God taught them to Adam directly, not through the angels, by making him witness them, not by giving him concepts or words. So they are not the names of the genera of things, as al-Ṭabrisī held, nor words for everything down to the trivial, as al-Ṭabarī reports from Ibn ʿAbbās, nor the gift of naming and eloquence of 55:4. Words change, differ from people to people, and mean nothing to angels; knowing them would be no perfection to ground vicegerency, and, as ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī observes, the angels could have said: had You taught us the words, we too would be worthy.
Views compared
Each view is given as al-Tasnim reports it. Each point opens al-Tasnim at that place.
The names of things Read →
al-Ṭabrisī
God showed Adam the genera of the world and told him their names, properties and benefits; the names are the things named by these.Jawādī Āmulī
The names are realities with referents, not labels; and since created realities are manifestations of the Divine Names, the beginning and end of the verse still agree.Words for everything Read →
al-Ṭabarī, from Ibn ʿAbbās; Kashf al-Asrār
He taught him the name of everything, down to the most trivial.Jawādī Āmulī
Not befitting an exegesis of the Qur’an. Al-Ṭabarī’s limiting of the names to Adam’s offspring and the angels was also critiqued.Words of a language Read →
A reading
The names are words and expressions.Jawādī Āmulī
Words change and differ from people to people, are unknown to angels, and would be no ground for vicegerency.Why words would not silence the angels Read →
ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī
Had the names been words, the angels would have become equal to Adam once he told them, and could have said: teach us too. In al-Mizan ↗Jawādī Āmulī
Agrees, and cites it as one of his reasons.The gift of speech Read →
A reading, comparing 55:3–4
Teaching the names is the gift of naming and eloquence (bayān) given to the human being.Jawādī Āmulī
The ability to name is no criterion for vicegerency; the verse speaks of knowledge actually given; and if compared, the names match the teaching of the Qur’an, not of eloquence.Reading guide
Each step opens al-Tasnim at that point.
- Direct teaching, without the angels
- Not the names of things: al-Ṭabrisī
- The names are the unseen realities of the world
- Why not words
- Al-Ṭabarī, Ibn ʿAbbās and Kashf al-Asrār
- The names as eloquence, and the reply
The whole commentary on 2:31 → · ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī on 2:31 in al-Mizan ↗