Adam is a mythical name for all humans
Adam in traditional Islam is the first human and a prophet. This popular misconception is solely based on creationist hadith stories, which were essentially borrowed from Judaeo-Christian sources during the earlier Islamic centuries.
This misperceived Adam, however, has no basis in the Quran.
Adam literally means ‘a human’, i.e. a man with potential human attributes like rationality and compassion. As ‘a human’, s/he is more than just ‘a man’ (bashar) or ‘a social man’ (insan). Obviously, as bashar or insan doesn’t refer to a particular person but to man in general, so is Adam in the Quran.
Thus, instead of referring to any specific human, Adam is an emblematic character that symbolizes every human, both man and woman. Children of Adam are children of human.
In other words, as a mythical name to denote all humans, Adam is a generic term rather than a personal name. And the allegory of Adam is an ongoing story of all humankind.
This explains why Adam in the Quran NEVER appears as a personal name.
Adam in the Quran never appears as a personal name
Earlier we observed that the Quran lists names of many inspired prophets/messengers and that these lists often include or start with Noah, but NEVER ADAM, not even in a single instance (please see: Is Adam a prophet?).
Here we will cite a few findings which further demonstrate that the Adam of the Quran is not a personal name.
For example, the Quran refrains from using the word ‘Adam’ in the allegory of Adam in 38:69-85. This appears deliberate, since otherwise ‘Adam’ could be confused as a personal name with the personal names of the prophets mentioned only a few verses earlier (38:12-48).
A similar finding is in 15:23-44, which also avoids the word ‘Adam’, apparently deliberately, so that ‘Adam’ is not confused as a personal name with the personal names of the prophets mentioned only a few verses later (15:51-61).
This contrasts with e.g. chapter 7, which mentions ‘Adam’ in the story of Fall of mankind (7:10-35) in line with the stories of Fall of communities of Noah, Hood, Saleh, Lot and Shuayb (7:59-93). But – because the chapter actually deals with communities, not individual prophets – Adam’s name appears here to represent a community, i.e. all humankind, rather than a human person. The same applies to the allegory of Adam in ch 2.
3:33 is NOT an exception
While Adam in the Quran never appears as a personal name, some people try to cite 3:33 as an exception, where the alleged personal name of ‘Adam’ appears to occur together with personal names of other prophets:
God preferred Adam and Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of Imran above the creatures. 3:33
However, in actuality this is not the case. Here Adam doesn’t refer to a person, but to a group.
This is because the above is NOT a list of personal names of prophets. It is a list of groups of prophets. This is clearly indicated by the syntax of the statement, where the word ‘family’ appears before Abraham and Imran.
This rendering of ‘Adam’ in 3:33 as ‘the family of Adam’ is confirmed by the explanation in its identical verse below. Here we see the same four groups of prophets, with the same sequence:
Those were some of the prophets on whom God bestowed His Grace, from the descendants of Adam, and of those who We carried with Noah, and from the descendants of Abraham and Israel of those whom We guided and chose. 19:58
So ‘Adam’ and ‘Noah’ in 3:33 stand for ‘the family of Adam’ (indicating ‘the prophets from all humankind’, 2:136, 3:84; cf. 17:70) and ‘those carried with Noah’, in line with ‘the family of Abraham’ and ‘the family of Imran’. Hence the verse can perhaps be better translated as:
God preferred (the family of) Adam and (those carried with) Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of Imran above the creatures. 3:33
Please observe how the above is then followed by a recurrence of the word Imran, to mean, in the same way, ‘the family of Imran’:
God preferred (the family of) Adam and (those carried with) Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of Imran above the creatures. …/ When a woman of (the family of) Imran said … 3:33, 35
Silent presence of similar interpolations can be noticed in the Quran in other instances, e.g.: And (the tribe of) A’ad, and (people of) Pharaoh, and the brethren of Lot. 50:13, where ‘Pharaoh’ means ‘people of Pharaoh’. Likewise, a single person, when symbolizes a community, can be perceived as pluralised, e.g. Abraham was a community. 16:120.
Also, considering the explanatory function (like ‘for example’) of ‘wa’ (‘and’) in Arabic, 3:33 can be understood as: “God preferred the family of human, e.g. those carried with Noah, e.g. the family of Abraham, e.g. the family of Imran above the creatures.” This makes real sense when we notice that the verse is comparing the human kind with other creatures.
Thus, ‘ADAM’ in the verse 3:33 – in line with 19:58 – in fact refers to the ‘prophets from all ADAMKIND (humankind)’, but NOT ADAM AS A PERSON.
There is no concept of first man in the Quran
According to the Quran, far from arriving on the Earth as a ready-made product, man has evolved through infinite stages involving the whole Universe. This explains why there is no concept of any first human person or first man in the Quran.
Both man and woman descend from the same living entity
All men and women have originated from a common, single source of humanity (nafs), which is gender-neutral: O humankind! Remain conscious of your Sustainer who has created you out of one single self (min nafsin wahidatin), and out of it created its pair/mate (zawjaha), and out of the two scattered a multitude of men and women. … 4:1. Translated here as self, the word ‘nafs’ (Nun-Fa-Siin) has a wide range of meanings, including self, living being, soul, spirit, breath, mind, living entity, cell, person, life-essence, mankind, vital principle, the whole with its essence and so on (cf. 7:189, 6:98, 30:21, 31:28, 39:6, 42:11). While ‘nafs’ is grammatically ‘she’/feminine, it also implies non-gender, wherefrom are created ‘zawjaha’ (lit. ‘HER pair/mate’; cf. 7:189, 39:6), i.e., both genders. In other words, if the first ‘nafs’ stands for Adam as a person, then Adam becomes female or non-gender, which contradicts the traditional belief of Adam as the first man. Thus the neutrality of gender of this common, single source is strongly supported in conformity with the text by the literal translation of the phrase khalaqa minha (‘out of it created’) and by the possibility of translating the word zawj as ‘a pair’ or ‘one of a pair’, i.e., either male or female sexual counterpart. This is consistent with the biological fact that both woman and man are contemporary to each other as they both have simultaneously originated from a sexually undifferentiated, single living entity.
Adam and his spouse are prone to idolatry
Also, if ‘nafs’ in 4:1 referred to Adam as a specific person, then the following passage would make no sense as it would then depict ‘the first man’ and his spouse as IDOLATERS: He it is who created you out of one single self (min nafsin wahidatin), and out of it created its pair/mate to attain tranquillity. When he covered her, she became pregnant … / But when He gave them a healthy child, they made partners with Him in what He had given them. 7:189-190. Were Adam and his spouse also the first to set up partners with God? The issue of idolatry here can be clarified only when we understand that Adam and his wife are not the first human couple but are symbolic characters simply representing humankind as a whole.
Adam is aware of his own mortality by seeing deaths of his predecessors
As an eternal garden of everlasting bliss, the Quranic Heaven cannot have any such thing as decay or death (3:136). Yet Devil deceives Adam/human with the temptation that ‘eating from the tree of discord and division’ would give him eternal life (But the devil whispered unto him, saying, “O Adam, shall I lead you to the tree of immortality and a kingdom which will never decay?” 20:120; cf. 2:34-36, 7:20). If Adam/human was already in Heaven instead of Earth, this temptation for eternal life would make no sense. Also, this awareness of Adam/human about his own mortality indicates that he lives in the world of mortals where he knows about his death by seeing deaths of his predecessors.
Adam’s mate in the Quran has no name
Because Adam means ‘a human’, of either sex, Adam’s mate refers to human’s either male or female partner (Adam’s husband or Adam’s wife). This explains why the Biblical name Eve is consistently absent in the Quran and Why Adam’s mate in the Quran is never named.
The concept of a first man or a first human couple is incompatible with modern science
A literal understanding of the scriptural narration about Adam and Eve as the first human couple is incompatible with the scientific consensus that humans evolved from other species including more primitive species of hominids. It also contradicts the current understanding of human Genetics as the evidence indicates that humans must have descended from a group of at least 10,000 people to produce the current amount of human genetic variation. If all humans descended from two individuals several thousand years ago, it would require an impossibly high mutation rate to account for the observed variation. These incompatibilities have caused some Christians to move away from a literal interpretation and belief in the Genesis creation narrative, while others continue to believe in what they see as a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith.
Further reading: Understanding the allegory of Adam
Lamp of Islam 