Assalamualaikum and hello :)

First of all, Happy Ramadhan people! Ahlan wa Sahlan ya Ramadhan :)

Secondly, in between of flipping pages trying to finish the tafseer I bought not long ago and re-reading the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (because it's just too awesome not to keep re-reading it haha) I browse through YouTube for interesting videos and came across one very fascinating knowledge.  Well, at least for me lah. It was about Adam and Eve from Mufti Menk's YouTube channel.

Allah s.w.t created many creatures, among them are the angels and the jin. He sent the jin on Earth to deal with another kind of creation that has been causing havoc and destruction. The jin dealt with them and eventually overpowers them. The head of the jin was the one known as Iblis. He was a very very proud  creature, he was very proud of his good deeds and very arrogant because he was once addressed as one of those from the heaven. When Allah speaks about 'malaika', the jin was also included in it even though he was not from amongst them. So, Iblis was good at the time. After that, Allah informed the angels of something important as made mention in surah al Baqarah. He informed them that He's putting on the Earth a Khalifah. 
Immediately the angels uttered ''O Allah, are you going to create someone and placed them on Earth who are going to cause chaos and they are going to spill blood, causing damage on Earth and yet we are here, worshiping You''. Allah said ''I know that which you do not know''. 

Now let's talk about how Adam was created. The words dust, soil, clay and dark clay were used to depict the different stages of growth even though it was for just a particular creation. Amazingly, Allah took the dust from different parts of the globe and put it all together. The different types of dust differ from their colours and their qualities. Allah then speaks about how He created this man. Do you know that the narration has made mention of the fact that Allah swt had this dust and then he added water to it and it became soil and He shaped it up into clay and He left it for awhile.Then He mentioned that it is similar to the clay of pottery but it is not the clay of pottery. What's the difference? Clay of pottery uses heat to be shaped while the one that Allah has created doesn't need heat. 

The size of Adam was about 60 feet tall, he was (astaghfirullahalazim) huge! Allah created Adam upon Adam's own image from day one meaning when he was created he was already big, had all the features and he was already an adult. When Allah left Adam for awhile, this certain pious being, Iblis, questioned why did Allah do this after all that he has done, worshiping Him and all that. He began to look up and down, literally monitoring the creature that Allah has made and he saw the belly. He found out that the being was not consistent and he knows that he can control it. He already made a promise even before the roh or soul was blown into Adam. He promised that he will lead Adam astray if he had an opportunity and if Adam were to be higher than him, he'll never follow Adam. An arrogant creature Iblis is. 

Then Allah blew the roh into Adam, starting from the top of his head. This shows that the most honoured organ that we have is the brain which distinguishes us from all other creatures because Allah gave it life first before anything else. As the roh was blown into Adam, the clay turned into flesh and blood and everything starts to work, the brain came to live and the eyes opened. Adam was granted the full knowledge of everything from day 1 by the will of Allah, he was born with it unlike us, who slowly learn stuff as we grow up. As his eyes opened, he saw the fruits of Jannah. He was so happy as he already understood what he saw. Then life came into his nose and he immediately sneezed. A sneeze is a sign of goodness as it is a gift from Allah that protects us from illness. An angel said 'O Adam, thank Allah' and Adam said 'Alhamdulillah' which means 'All praise is due to Allah'. 

As life came into his hands, he stretched out to get the fruits but life had not yet come into his legs yet so he couldn't move. Allah makes mention of this, He said 'Men are always in haste' (don't try to deny that we're not haha). Then Allah instructed the angels to prostate to Adam, not to worship him but only in order to acknowledge Adam's status which is higher than all of them. They all prostrated immediately besides Iblis. He refused out of arrogance and became amongst them who disbelieve. This was the first sin ever made. Let's be clear that arrogance is not the pride of owning expensive things, it is when we rejects the truth and despises others. Allah asked Iblis 'What is it that stopping you?' and Iblis answered 'I am much better than him, You made him from dust and You made me from fire. Who is he? He should prostrate to me!'. The lesson is, never underestimate others. People are equal, no one is better than the other when it comes to access to Allah. Iblis also said to Allah 'If You give me til the day of Judgement, then I will show You, I will lead astray all of them' and Allah granted him his wish, He said 'Those who are my true worshipers, you will not have any authority on them, you will not be able to control them' (this part gave me shivers).

Adam was now standing, Allah told him to go to the angels and greet the angels. He went up to the angels and greeted them saying 'Assalamualaikum' and the angels answered 'Waalaikummusalam'. Assalamualaikum means may peace be upon you which guarantee that we will not harm them. The mufti also said that it is hypocritical when we greet someone saying Assalamualaikum but behind their back we are harming them by talking bad about them. Imagine how peaceful our lives would be if we use the greeting properly, no?

Now, how did Eve come about? According to some of the narrations Adam was the only one of mankind in the heaven and naturally he was feeling very lonely, so he asked Allah for something that could give him comfort. So one day, when he got up, he noticed someone very similar to him. In the hadith, Allah said He created from Adam his spouse, which was Eve. She was created from Adam's rib. Actually there's something special and meaningful about the story of the creation of women. As we know, the rib is bent and if we were to straighten it, it might crack. Similarly, it shows that we need to be very very careful in treating a woman. It is telling the menfolk to be careful of how you handle the women, be very kind to them, be very tolerant and be very patient with them because pushing them will only break them instead of doing any good, which is true. From just that, we can already realize that a woman was given to a man as a gift after great prayer. We need to understand this so that we can appreciate the blessing Allah has given to us.

Adam saw Eve and he asked her, ''Who are you?''. She said "I am a woman". Adam asked again "Why were you created?" and Eve answered "I am created as a pair for you, to give you comfort and company". Subhanallah. This is the main reason for a real marriage as you are meant to be getting comfort from it. The companionship should be giving you lots of goodness, peace, harmony not the feeling of burden or unhappiness. 

After that, an unfortunate incident happened resulting in Adam and Eve being instructed to leave the heaven and go to the Earth along with Iblis. Allah s.w.t told Adam a.s "I will continue sending you guidance, and your progeny and offspring, guidance. Whoever follows the guidance they won't go astray and they won't be unfortunate'' Subhanallah. So this is why the Quran is here, as a guidance for us promised by Allah s.w.t.Maybe for those who lack contentment, it is because they have drifted far away from Allah s.w.t. and that is the time to come back to Allah. Allah s.w.t said ''Whoever turns away from My reminders that I keep sending them, they will be having a life which is very narrow, full of difficulties, lack of contentment and so on. When we resurrect him on the day of qiamah, he will be blind.'' So he will say, ''O Allah how did you resurrect me blind when I could see whilst I was alive on the Earth?'' And Allah s.w.t. will say ''Didn't we send you reminders and you turned a blind eye against those reminders? So today we resurrected you blind."Astaghfirullah, may Allah not make us from among those.

Back to Adam a.s, we asked where was him placed when he was sent down to Earth. According to the narrations, we don't know for certain but there's a possibility that he came down at Sri Lanka, a place now known as Adam's Peak mountain. Only Allah knows. As for Eve, she came down at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.The name itself, Jeddah when translated means the grandmother, named after Eve. So now, they started looking for each other. Adam a.s started to walk across the Earth to find Eve and so did she. According to the historian, they met in Arafah. Somehow I see this as an example of when we are separated from our spouse, be it due to an argument or anything, it should hurt us and make us want to get back together instead of waiting for another person to come along. Adam a.s knew he has a wife and he walked half the globe to get her. Such a beautiful effort we rarely see nowadays. 

And so, I ended the watching with Alhamdulillah :)