al-Aʿrāf 7:11

Wa laqad khalaqnākum thumma ṣawwarnākum thumma qulnā li'l-malāʾikati'sjudū li-Ādama fa-sajadū illā Iblīsa lam yakun mina's-sājidīn

"We created you, then We gave you form, then We said to the angels, 'Prostrate yourselves to Adam'; and they prostrated themselves, all but Iblīs — he was not among those who prostrated."

This is the only instance among the seven tellings in the Qurʾān, and it must be recorded.

The verse does not say "We created Adam"; it says "We created you." Then within the same sentence it passes over to Adam.

Two readings are transmitted, and both have been defended by the lexicographers:

Both are transmitted; I do not impose a preference. But this is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: whichever reading is taken, the word order places the reader inside the story. And from the twenty-sixth verse on the sūra will call out yā banī Ādam — that is, the narrative begins with a pronoun that makes the reader an addressee and continues with a vocative that makes him an addressee.

The sense of the root: to give a thing form, shape, figure. Ṣūra is from the same root; muṣawwir is among the names of God (al-Ḥashr 59/24).

The root was treated at 82/7-8 in al-Infiṭār (fa-sawwāka fa-ʿadalaka fī ayyi ṣūratin mā shāʾa rakkabak) and at 40/64 in Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) and 64/3 in al-Taghābun (wa ṣawwarakum fa-aḥsana ṣuwarakum). I rely on those treatments.

What belongs here is that the two verbs are separated by thumma:

khalaqnākum — thumma — ṣawwarnākum — thumma — qulnā li'l-malāʾika

The particle ثُمَّ states sequence and interval (fāʾ states immediate sequence). That is, the text counts three stages separately: creating, forming, the command to prostrate.

I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the particle itself: the command to prostrate comes not immediately after the creating, but after the forming. And at 38/72 in Ṣād the ground of the command was given as fa-idhā sawwaytuhū wa nafakhtu fīhi min rūḥī — there too the taswiya (the setting in order) is named before the command. The two sūras keep the same order.

The second difference of word order in al-Aʿrāf is here, and it must be recorded.

Al-Aʿrāf states not something Iblīs did but something he was not: "he was not among those who prostrated."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the comparison of the four sūras: where the other three give the act (abā, istakbara), al-Aʿrāf gives the position. And this accords with al-Aʿrāf's building the whole story as a separation: in later sections too the sūra will always name people in two groups (farīqan hadā wa farīqan ḥaqqa ʿalayhimu'ḍ-ḍalāla, 30; aṣḥābu'l-janna / aṣḥābu'n-nār, 44). The language of al-Aʿrāf is the language of groups.

Note: the debate over whether the exception in fa-sajadū illā Iblīsa is connected (muttaṣil) or disconnected (munqaṭiʿ) — that is, whether Iblīs was counted among the angels — was treated in al-Baqara and at 18/50 in al-Kahf. I rely on those treatments; I do not repeat them here.