Whether these chronological figures were truly preserved in the revelation that came down from heaven is open to question, as more than one scholar has observed in their critical remarks. The most evident likelihood is that they were later interpolations—inserted by some as explanatory additions—and they contain many inaccuracies, as we shall point out in due course, God willing.

Imām Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Jarīr reports in his History, on the authority of certain earlier authorities, that Eve bore Adam forty children in twenty pregnancies. This was stated by Ibn Isḥāq, who even recorded their names; and God knows best.

Others have said that she had one hundred and twenty pregnancies, each producing a boy and a girl. The first pair were Cain and his sister Qulīmā, and the last were ʿAbd al-Mughīth and his sister Umm al-Mughīth.

After that, people spread out, increased in number, and populated the earth, just as the Almighty says: “O mankind! Be mindful of your Lord who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread countless men and women” (al-Nisāʾ 4:1).

Historians have also related that Adam—peace be upon him—did not pass away until he had seen four hundred thousand of his descendants, from among his sons and grandsons. God knows best.

The Exalted likewise says: “He is the One who created you from a single soul and from it made its spouse so that he might find repose in her. When he covered her, she conceived a light burden and carried it about; and when it became heavy they both called upon Allah, their Lord: ‘If You grant us a righteous child, we shall surely be among the thankful.’ Yet when He granted them a righteous child, they associated partners with Him in what He had given them. Exalted is Allah above what they associate with Him” (al-Aʿrāf 7:189–190).

Here the discourse begins by mentioning Adam and then shifts to the human species as a whole; the point is not to narrate Adam and Eve’s story in detail, but to move from the individual to the genus once the individual has been mentioned. The same stylistic device appears in His words: “Indeed, We created man from an extract of clay; then We placed him as a drop of sperm in a secure lodging” (al-Muʾminūn 23:12–13), and in His statement: “We have indeed adorned the nearest heaven with lamps and made them missiles for the devils” (al-Mulk 67:5). It is clear that the missiles hurled at devils are not the very same celestial lamps; rather, the verse moves from the specific to the general.

As for the ḥadīth recorded by Imām Aḥmad—“ʿAbd al-Ṣamad related to us; ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm related to us; Qatādah related to us, from al-Ḥasan, from Samurah, from the Prophet ﷺ, who said: ‘When Eve gave birth, Iblīs circled around her, for none of her children used to survive. He said, “Name him ʿAbd al-Ḥārith, for then he will live.” So she named him ʿAbd al-Ḥārith, and he survived; that was from the suggestion and command of Satan.’ ”—al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and Ibn Mardawayh have all transmitted it in their commentaries on this verse, and al-Ḥākim has also cited it in his Mustadrak, all of them through the same chain of transmission.