Eve Created from Rib?

[Dr. Shabbir]

AoA Sir:

This may find you in best of health and spirit of Eman.
Today I offered my Isha prayers with jama't in our local masjid. At the end
of the prayers, someone narrated a few hadiths from Bukhari/Muslim which simply put conveyed that Woman was created from the Rib of ADam, and that she is deficient .... blah blah, you know.


Most of the narrations were attributed to Hazrat Abu Huraira. I could not stop myself to tell them (1) these are biblical stories/account for I have seen something similar in Genesis, and (2) Quran is completely silent corroborating such an account/story. well, you can well imagine, everyone was out to remind me "Bukhari and Muslim are infallible, and
that I ought to change my thinking about these collections."

I would request if you could enlighten me in brief on the (1) origin of this
absurd account/story of Eve created out of Adams rib and (2) what exactly Quran says about the creation of Eve ?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Jazak Allah kher
Muhammad Dawood
------------------------------------------------

Respected brother,

The Quran adopts the beautiful method of either gently correcting or ignoring the errors in other Scriptures.

Unfortunately, our ancient 'Imams' of Hadith and the modern clergy blindly plagiarize from the Biblical myths.

Creation of 'Eve' from Adam's rib is one of those Biblical myths and that is the origin of this tragic fallacy. The Quran does not approve this myth at all.

GENESIS:

What was the Forbidden Tree?

2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

[But Adam and Eve lived on for centuries afterward. The Quran refers to it as the tree of division. Humankind must not divide like the branches of a tree and be one community]

2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
No question of women's rights

2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. [Why did he not create her from dust?]

2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

3:6 And ----, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden ----.

3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

[Both had erred and God had accepted their repentance - Al-Quran]
------------------------------------------------

Now the Quranic standpoint:

2:35 We told the early humans, Adam and his wife (men and women), “O Mankind! Reside in this land which is Paradise and partake the fruit thereof as you please. But go not near this branching Tree (of Selfishness). Or, you will become of the wrongdoers.”

[If you branch off into casts, sects, and rivalry, you shall replace your Paradise with Hell. 2]

2:36 But Satan caused them both (men as well as women) to stumble therein and get them out of the happy state they were in. And so We said, “Degraded you have become with wedges of discord among yourselves! There shall be for you habitation and livelihood on earth for a while.”



2:37 (The solution to this catastrophe was beyond human redress.) Then Adam received Words of Guidance from his Lord and He accepted his repentance. Certainly, He is the Acceptor, the Most Merciful.

[Adam = Man. His wife = Woman. Udma = Ability to live together as a community. Adam from Udma thus, indicates humankind. The word “Eve” or Hawwa is not mentioned in the Quran. She is described with dignity as Mer’atil Aadam or his Zaujah (the wife, consort, mate of Adam). The Quran adopts the beautiful method of either gently correcting or ignoring the errors in other Scriptures. It does not repeat the Biblical fallacy of ‘Eve’ having been created from Adam’s rib. She also repented and God treated both of them equally. 7]

2:38 We said, “For now, all of you are confined to a lower level of existence, out of this state of spontaneous felicity which is Paradise. But behold, when Guidance comes to you from Me, those who will follow My Guidance, there shall come to them fear from without, nor shall grief touch them from within.”

[Note here the multiple plural ‘all of you’ confirming that Adam and his wife are allegorical terms for the humankind. Incidentally the word ‘Eve’ is nowhere mentioned in the Quran, once again Adam denoting humankind. Khauf = Fear from without. Huzn = Intrinsic depression or grief = Unhappiness = Regret.]

39:6 He has created you all out of one living entity (from a single life cell) - and fashioned similarly its mate, male and female (6:99). And He has bestowed upon you livestock of eight kinds in pairs. (Sheep, goat, camel, cow - male and female, the common permissible livestock 6:144-146) He creates you in the bellies of your mothers, creation after creation, in threefold depths of darkness (the abdominal wall, the uterine wall and the embryonic sac). Such is God, your Lord! Unto Him belongs the Kingdom. There is no god but He. How, then, can you sway like errant winds!

[‘Nafs’ = Self, Mind, Psyche, Soul, Human being, Living entity, Person, Humankind, Essence of life, Personality, Mental faculty, Ego, I, Me, I-am-ness, Personal identity, Animate object. ‘Nafsinwwaahidah’ = A single life-cell. ‘Minha zawjaha’ = Mate out of its own kind = Mate, male and female, similar in essence. 49]

49:13 O Mankind! Indeed, We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes so that you might (affectionately) come to know one another. Surely, the most honored among you, in the Sight of God, is the one who is best in conduct and lives most upright. Indeed, God is Knower, Aware.

[‘Min zakarinwwa untha’ = Of a kind that is male, and of a kind that is female = Male and female = Some of you are men and some of you are women. On this note I find myself in agreement with M. Pickthall 39]

[Drcheema]

Salaam
The biblical story of Adam and ever has its roots in the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag. Sumerians had influence on the cannanites who preceded the Hebrews. Therefore, this story with some alterations was carried on into the jewish and later christian literature.

The name Eve means according to the Bible, ‘she who makes live’? If we look at the Sumerian myth, we see that when Enki gets ill, cursed by Ninhursag, one of his body parts that start dying is the rib. The Sumerian word for rib is ‘ti’ . To heal each o Enki’s dying body parts, Ninhursag gives birth to eight goddesses. The goddess created for the healing of Enki’s rib is called ‘Nin-ti’, ‘the lady of the rib’. But the Sumerian word ‘ti’ also means ‘to make live’. The name ‘Nin-ti’ may therefore mean ‘the lady who makes live’ as well as ‘the lady of the rib’. Thus, a very ancient literary pun was carried over and perpetuated in the Bible, but without its original meaning, because the Hebrew word for ‘rib’ and that for ‘who makes live’ have nothing in common.

regards