The word ‘zawj’ is also used in various contexts to mean different things. While its most common usage is to mean ‘partner in marriage’ it has also seen to be used in the context of consciousness implying the partner or equivalent of consciousness and the body that will fall into disuse at some point. In fact, the seventh verse of chapter 56, al-Waqi’ah, states ‘azwajan thalathah’ to mean ‘three kinds’ not three wives!
If we evaluate the words of the Quran in a constricted literal sense and in reference to only one meaning, we will not only be doing grave injustice but also paving the pathway to the primitive belief that it is an obscure and inconceivable Godly book of commands!
Whereas the Quran is the articulation, through revelation, of the Rabb of the worlds (the source of the infinite meanings of the Names), giving us the knowledge about the system by which the implicit qualities of the Names manifest to create the explicit world. This is what ‘religion’ is!
Man, in other words ‘pure consciousness’, is the personified Quran. Earthlings who believe themselves to be no more than their physical bodies have been called ‘human beings’ due to this universal consciousness present in their innermost essence. When units of consciousness (in earthly bodies) refuse to have faith in this, they are denying their innermost essence and reducing themselves to mere material existence. Hence, the Quran describes such people as ‘they are like cattle, nay, they are even more astray (from being a human) in their way’ (Quran 25:44). In other words, only the animalistic appetites of their physical bodies drive their lives. They deny the magnificent and superior qualities of their own reality and function only with the stimuli of the neurons in their intestines (the second brain), thereby reducing their lives to the animal – bodily state.
As for the frequent narrations of the lives and examples of Rasuls and Nabis in the Quran… All of these are also examples of possible intellectual or physical errors humankind are prone to and should be cautioned against. Nevertheless, such incidents have been lived by every human population of every century in one way or another!
In regards to the creation of Adam, the Quran says: ‘Indeed, the example of Jesus to Allah is like that of Adam’ (Quran 3:59). That is, in terms of his physical body, Adam was also born from a mother’s womb. His body also went through all the common biological stages of development. This has been explained through various metaphors. Besides all of this, however, what is really meant by ‘Adam’ is a human who has consciously recognized and accepted all of the meanings of the Names and thus deserved the title ‘vicegerent’. This is what truly matters. All the rest are details and probably even unnecessary, as it doesn’t really matter from where and how the material body, which will eventually decompose back into simple matter under the earth, came about. Certain symbols and metaphors have been employed to imply his biological aspect was created from the earth’s atomic constituent, like all other earthlings, but his biological body is of no relevance to what is really being denoted by this name. ‘Adam’, is ‘pure consciousness’, formed from nothingness, and composed of (‘ja’ala’ not ‘khaleqa’) the qualities of the Names and designated as a ‘vicegerent’ (khalifa) on earth. It is a shame that many fail to understand this reality and spend their lives arguing over the creation process of his mortal biological body!
The satanic being referred to as ‘Iblis’ has an interesting story. Iblis, while essentially a Name composition comprised of angelic qualities, displays an inadequate expression of the Names al-Waliyy, al-Mumin and al-Hadi. Due to his own inadequacy, he fails to recognize how profoundly the Names are manifested on the creation of supreme form (‘ahsani takwim’). Hence, he evaluates Adam according to his apparent qualities and fails to see his superiority in terms of the Names and their expressions. Moreover, he assumes that accepting the superiority of Adam over his own creation will mean denying his own reality, since he too is created with and from the Names, and thus he refrains from prostrating. Evidently, it is impossible for one to evaluate a quality that he himself lacks.
Eventually this leads to pure consciousness in the form of Adam approaching the forbidden tree, i.e. becoming restricted by the requisites of the bodily life. This is also an interesting anecdote. Satan convinces Adam to the ‘wrong’ according to his own ‘right’, imposing the idea: “You have been created with the Reality of the Names, you cannot be restricted or conditioned by anything, you should do as you wish. If you don’t eat from the forbidden tree, that is, if you don’t live the requirements of the bodily life, you would be accepting limitation and thus denying your essential reality, thereby depriving yourself of immortality!”
Consequently, humanity at the level of the Inspiring Self (nafs-i mulhima), symbolized with the name Adam, becomes veiled from the higher states of pure consciousness, and falls to the bodily state of the Commanding Self (nafs-i ammarah), becoming conditioned by bodily needs. When this reaches the ultimate point of forgetting their own essence, the reminders and imparters of reality, i.e. Rasuls, become manifest, inviting mankind back to their essence, back to having faith in the higher states of consciousness.
When human beings, who are manifestations of Universal Pure Consciousness, begin to experience themselves as individualized conscious beings in this physical body, the struggle of this relationship with their ‘partner’ (body) and the battle to go back to their essential reality commences.
In short:
There are two types of consciousness. The first is the manifestation of the Names as a whole, to observe itself through the appearance of individualized compositions. This is the Universal Pure Consciousness. The second kind is the individual consciousness of each manifestation, formed by genetic inheritances, environmental conditionings and astrological influences. For the purpose of clarity in this book, we will refer to the second kind as ‘consciousness’ to avoid confusion. Consciousness is an output of the brain and hence confines itself to comprise only the body (humanoid). Consciousness uses the mind to evaluate ideas and to live accordingly. But the mind, pressured by the body’s biological make-up, often malfunctions. As such, it is near impossible for the mind to find the Reality all on its own. Furthermore, the mind makes judgments based on sensory perception. This is why the mind is invited to ‘believe’, to have ‘faith’ in what lies beyond its area of perception. For, the reality ‘beyond’ matter encompasses matter.