“…it has been seen to.’ They came to him, took his soul, washed him, embalmed him, and shrouded him. Then Gabriel, with the angels arrayed behind him, performed the funeral prayer over him, and they buried him.
They said, ‘This is the precedent for you regarding your dead.’ The ḥadīth, with its full chain of transmission and complete wording, will be cited when we discuss the death of Adam, peace be upon him.
They also argue: Had it been impossible to reach the garden in which Adam lived—the very place from which he desired that cluster of grapes—his children would not have gone to fetch it. This, they say, proves that the garden was on earth, not in heaven—and Allah knows best.
They add: Some contend that the definite article in the verse, ‘O Adam, dwell—you and your wife—in the garden’ (al-Aʿrāf 19), cannot point back to a previously mentioned referent, so it must be a mentally assumed one. We agree; yet the context makes that referent clear. Adam was created from earth; no report states that he was lifted to the heavens; indeed, he was made for the earth, as the Lord Himself informed us: ‘I am placing a vicegerent on earth’ (al-Baqarah 30).
Likewise, in His words, ‘We tested the owners of the garden’ (al-Qalam 17), the definite article does not denote universality, nor does it point to an explicit antecedent. It refers instead to an orchard implicitly understood from the context.
They continue: The mention of “descent” (hubūṭ) does not necessarily imply coming down from heaven. Allah says, ‘It was said: “O Noah, disembark in peace from Us and with blessings upon you and upon the communities that are with you”’ (Hūd 48). Noah was on the Ark (1) when it settled upon al-Jūdiyy and the waters receded; he and those with him were commanded to disembark to the land, and blessings were pronounced upon them. Allah also says, ‘Descend to Egypt; there you will have what you asked for’ (al-Baqarah 61), and He says, ‘And indeed there are stones that fall for fear of Allah’ (al-Baqarah 74). Many similar examples occur in ḥadith and in the language itself.
They further contend: Nothing prevents—indeed, the evidence indicates—that the garden in which Adam was lodged rose above the rest of the earth, possessing trees, fruits, shade, bliss, freshness, and joy. About it the Most High said, ‘Indeed, you will neither go hungry therein nor go naked’ (Ṭā Hā 118)—meaning that your inner self will not be humbled by hunger, nor your outer self by nakedness—‘and you will neither thirst therein nor be scorched by the sun’ (Ṭā Hā 119), meaning that neither the inward heat of thirst nor the outward heat of the sun will touch you. Hence each pair of phrases is coupled with its corresponding opposite (2).
But when he ate from the very tree he had been forbidden, he was sent down to a land of misery, toil, weariness, drudgery (3), striving, distress, trial, test, and probation—a realm whose inhabitants differ in religion, character, and deeds.