Teaching and Reporting

As mentioned in previous discussions, the expression “inform them” (anbiʾhum) is used instead of “teach them” (ʿallimhum), and similarly, the expression “informed them” (anbāhum) is used instead of “taught them” (ʿallamahum). However, in the case of Ādam, the expression used is “and He taught Ādam the names” (_wa ʿallama ādama al-_asmāʾ), not “and He informed Ādam of the names” (_wa anbā ādama al-_asmāʾ). This indicates that what Ādam acquired after being taught by God is different from what the angels acquired after being informed and reported to by Ādam (a.s.).

What was given to Ādam was knowledge and comprehension of the true nature of things, while what was given to the angels was merely news and a report about things. In the previous verse, in relation to the address “Inform Me of the names of these” (_anbiʾūnī bi-_asmāʾ__i hāʾulāʾ), the angels were unable to even report (despite reporting being a thin and faint form of knowledge). This is because, although news (nabaʾ) is a thin form of knowledge, informing and reporting are based on a type of knowledge. Therefore, one can only be a reporter of something if they have previously been taught it. Since the angels had not reached the origin and source of the ability to inform, they expressed their inability to report when addressed by God with “Inform Me” (anbiʾūnī).

Even if there is no difference between learning and being informed (in the sense that a prophet is called a prophet because he receives unseen reports in a knowledgeable manner), there is at least this difference: Ādam’s knowledge is unmediated, while the angels’ knowledge is mediated, and mediated knowledge in such cases is a weaker form (raqīqa) of unmediated knowledge. That is, the difference between the two is the difference between reality and its weaker form, because the precedence that the intermediary has over the one without intermediary in such cases is a precedence of rank, like the precedence of cause over effect and the apparent over the manifestation, in which the preceding possesses a reality that the succeeding does not have, but rather has a weaker form of it, not a temporal precedence.

It is like when Zayd tells something to Amr, then Amr conveys the same thing with the same concept and level of knowledge, without any advantage or difference, to Bakr, and as a result, the knowledge that Bakr has obtained is no different from the knowledge that Amr has obtained. Rather, in some cases, the understanding of the student with an intermediary may be deeper and more precise than the understanding of the student without an intermediary, as the Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: “It may be that the bearer of understanding conveys it to one who has more understanding than him.”(297)

This is another evidence that knowledge of the names is not merely the linguistic meaning of things, which is the responsibility of linguistic convention, otherwise, this much would also be achieved through being informed. Rather, knowledge of the names is the teaching of realities and the unveiling and presentation of the essences of existents—realities and essences that are, firstly, the unseen and the inner aspect of the heavens and the earth, and secondly, reaching them is possible for the all-encompassing being, that is, the perfect human being, not others, and thirdly, awareness and witnessing of them play a role in divine vicegerency.

Note: The flow of Ādam’s (a.s.) prophethood emerged after his descent to Earth; before that, there was no mention of conventional legislation and customary messengership. Therefore, Ādam being commanded to inform the angels of the names was not a legislative command. Thus, the possibility of Ādam (a.s.) being a messenger to the angels, and the proposition that the angels were aware of Ādam’s prophethood, as some have suggested,(298) is incorrect. Of course, in the realm of the angels, there is a special form of messengership that differs from customary legislative prophethood. The point is that the style of the story of Ādam (a.s.) and the command to inform of the names was presented in the form of legislation, but it is not legislation in the conventional sense.