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6. Did Adam Perform Miracles Like Christ did?
Next I focused on deeds of Christ, which distinguish him from all other messengers of Allah in the Koran. I mean the astonishing miracles, which Christ has accomplished according to Allah's revelation in the Koran. I asked myself if these miracles of Christ could also be found in verses of the Koran about Adam and what these miracles reveal to us about Christ's nature. For this I carefully studied what Christ said about himself in this verse of the Koran:
And (as) a messenger (of Allah) to the Children of Israel, (Christ came with this message): “Truly, I have come to you with a (miraculous) sign from your Lord, in that, truly, I create for you out of clay (something) like the form of birds, then I breathe into it, and it becomes a bird, with Allah's permission; and I cleanse the blind and the leper , and I make alive the dead , with Allah's permission; and I reveal to you what you eat, and what you store in your houses ( without having seen it )! Truly, in that (there verily) is a (miraculous) sign for you, if you are believers.” (Sura Al 'Imran 3:49, part of these statements are also in Sura al-Ma'ida 5:110)
وَرَسُولاً إِلَى بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنِّي قَدْ جِئْتُكُمْ بِآيَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ أَنِّي أَخْلُق لَكُم مِنَ الطِّينِ كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَيْراً بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَأُبْرِئ الأَكْمَه وَالأَبْرَص وَأُحْيِي الْمَوْتَى بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَأُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا تَأْكُلُونَ وَمَا تَدَّخِرُونَ فِي بُيُوتِكُمْ إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لآيَةً لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ (سُورَة آل عِمْرَان ٣ : ٤٩)'''
I searched through the whole Koran trying to find verses, which reveal any miracle, which Adam did. However I failed to do so, let alone miracles that come close to what Christ is revealed as having done. Therefore I concluded that the Koran teaches the following differences between Christ and Adam:
DIFFERENCE 19 : Christ created living beings (flying animals), while Adam did not create living beings. In this Christ and Adam are fundamentally different.
DIFFERENCE 20 : Because creating a living being is a divine deed, therefore Christ is like Allah in this act of creating living creatures that can fly. Adam on the other hand is not like Allah at all, because Adam never created anything. Here again Christ and Adam are very different.
DIFFERENCE 21 : Christ cleansed or relieved the blind and the leper by removing from them their polluting illnesses. Adam, however, never healed anybody. In this Christ and Adam are again fundamentally different.
DIFFERENCE 22 : Christ could only cleanse the blind and the leper of their polluting illnesses, because he is pure, like God. Adam on the other hand was not able to cleanse the sick, because he was polluted by his own sin, and therefore was not like God. In this Christ and Adam are so different that they are opposed to each other in nature.
DIFFERENCE 23 : Christ made alive the dead, but Adam did not bring any dead person back to life. Here Christ and Adam again are fundamentally different.
DIFFERENCE 24 : Since one of the 99 fitting names of Allah is al-Muhyiy (i.e. the One who makes alive, the Quickener), therefore this name of Allah also applies to Christ, because he too can make the dead alive; i.e. Christ and Allah share this divine nature of quickening the dead. Adam on the other hand neither shares this name nor this nature of Allah, because he did not raise any dead person; rather he is described as shedding blood, i.e. killing people (Sura al-Baqara 2:30, see above). Here, therefore, Christ and Adam are again so different, that their natures are the opposite of each other.
DIFFERENCE 25 : Christ, without having seen it, could tell people, what they ate in the secrecy of their homes and what food they hid away from their neighbors; i.e. Christ knew the unseeably hidden (al-ghayb). Adam, however, according to the Koran, did not know the unseeably hidden, because he did not know what punishment would come upon him, if he broke Allah's command in the Garden of Paradise. Here Christ and Adam are fundamentally different.
To understand this last difference it is important to notice what Adam was told by Allah in the Garden of Paradise. We have two verses in the Koran, which repeat this event:
And we (Allah) said: “O Adam! Dwell you and your spouse (i.e. your wife) (in) the Jannah (Garden of Paradise) and eat (both of you) from it (with) pleasure wherever you (two) want. And (you two) do not draw near this tree, ( for) then you (two) would be among the wrong-doers .” (Sura al-Baqara 2:35)
وَقُلْنَا يَا آدَم اسْكُن أَنْت وَزَوْجُك الْجَنَّة وَكُلا مِنْهَا رَغَدا حَيْث شِئْتُمَا وَلا تَقْرَبَا هَذِه الشَّجَرَة فَتَكُونَا مِن الظَّالِمِين (سُورَة الْبَقَرَة ٢ : ٣٥)
(After having addressed the Devil, he, i.e. Allah, said:) And “O Adam! Dwell you and your spouse (i.e. your wife) (in) the Jannah (Garden of Paradise)! So eat (both of you) from wherever you (two) want. And (you two) do not draw near this tree, ( for) then you (two) would be among the wrong-doers .” (Sura al-A'raf 7:19)
وَيَا آدَم اسْكُن أَنْت وَزَوْجُك الْجَنَّة فَكُلا مِن حَيْث شِئْتُمَا وَلا تَقْرَبَا هَذِه الشَّجَرَة فَتَكُونَا مِن الظَّالِمِين (سُورَة الأَعْرَاف ٧ : ١٩)
Notice that Allah commanded Adam not to draw near to a certain tree in the Garden of Paradise. However, Allah did not disclose to Adam the name or the nature of this tree in the Garden of Paradise, neither did he tell Adam what his punishment would be, if he would disobey Allah and draw near that tree in spite of Allah's commandment. Only later did Adam discover that the punishment was banishment from the heavenly Garden of Paradise down to earth. Now, I am convinced that if Adam had known what his punishment for disobeying Allah would be, he would not have drawn near this forbidden tree, because which sensible person would be willing to forfeit the mind-boggling pleasures of the Garden of Paradise by just disobeying one commandment of Allah? However, Adam did not know what his punishment would be, i.e. his punishment was unseeably hidden from him, and therefore Satan was able to trick him and make him slip out of the Garden of Paradise down to earth, as the Koran says in Sura al-Baqara 2:36 (see below). This clearly demonstrated to me that Adam did not know the unseeably hidden. Christ, however, knew what was unseeably hidden, and therefore was very different from Adam. This led me to the next contrast between Christ and Adam:
DIFFERENCE 26 : Since one of the 99 fitting names of Allah is ‘Aalim al-Ghayb (i.e. the Knower of what is Unseeably Hidden), therefore this name of Allah also applies to Christ, because he too knows what is unseeably hidden; i.e. Christ and Allah share this divine nature of knowing the unseeably hidden. Adam on the other hand neither shares this name nor this nature of Allah, because he did not know the unseeably hidden punishment that would await him if he disobeyed the commandment of Allah in the Garden of Paradise; rather he is described as someone, who was foolish enough for Satan to trick him out of the Garden of Paradise. So here again, Christ and Adam are so different, that their natures are the opposite of each other.
The differences between Christ and Adam presented in this chapter can be summarized in the following way:
DIFFERENCE 27 : Christ has performed divine miracles (he created living creatures, he cleansed the sick, he raised the dead and he knew the unseeably hidden), while Adam did not perform any divine miracles, rather he was completely and totally subjected to the human condition. In this Christ and Adam are deeply different from each other.
DIFFERENCE 28 : Christ shares with Allah a number of the fitting names of Allah (the Creator, the Pure One, the Raiser of the Dead, and the Knower of the Unseeably Hidden), and therefore Christ shares in the nature of Allah, which is described using these names. Adam, however, does not only not share any names of Allah or the divine nature behind them, but in most cases has an opposite name and nature. In this Christ and Adam are more than different, so that they are the opposite of each other.
You can imagine how bewildered I was, when I reached this point in my studies. Was there any hope left to equate Christ and Adam in their human natures, or was this the final judgment on the prevalent Muslim opinion, which I was taught about Christ and Adam? I tried to save the knowledge, which my Mulsim teachers taught me about Christ and Adam, by consulting additional verses of the Koran.