Allah chose you for His speech and wrote the Torah for you with His Hand. Would you then blame me for something Allah had decreed for me forty years before He created me?” Thus Adam prevailed over Moses in the argument. (1)

ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Aʿraj also narrated it from Abu Hurayrah, adding: “Adam said, ‘O Moses, how long before I was created did you find that Allah had written the Torah?’ Moses replied, ‘Forty years.’ Adam said, ‘And did you find in it: “Thus Adam disobeyed his Lord and fell into error”?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’ Adam said, ‘Would you then blame me for having done a deed which Allah had written for me to do forty years before He created me?’ The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘Thus Adam prevailed over Moses in the argument.’” (2)

“Then his Lord chose him, accepted his repentance, and guided him. He said, ‘Descend from it, all of you, as enemies to one another. Then, when guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance will neither go astray nor suffer misery. But whoever turns away from My remembrance will certainly have a constricted life, and We shall raise him blind on the Day of Resurrection.’” (122–124)

His saying, “Then his Lord chose him,” means that He selected and favored him; “accepted his repentance,” by pardoning him; “and guided him,” meaning that He guided him to repentance when they said, “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.”

“He said, ‘Descend from it, all of you, as enemies to one another. Then, when guidance comes to you from Me, whoever follows My guidance,’” meaning the Book and the Messenger, “will neither go astray nor suffer misery.” Saʿid ibn Jubayr narrated from Ibn ʿAbbas that he said: Whoever recites the Quran and follows what it contains, Allah will guide him away from misguidance in this world and protect him from the evil of the reckoning on the Day of Resurrection. This is because Allah says: “Whoever follows My guidance will neither go astray nor suffer misery.” (3)

Al-Shaʿbi narrated from Ibn ʿAbbas: Allah Most High has guaranteed the follower of the Quran protection from going astray in this world and suffering misery in the Hereafter. He then recited this verse. (4) “But whoever turns away from My remembrance,” meaning the Quran, neither believing in it nor following it, “will certainly have a constricted life.”