Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ ,

The pseudo ex-Muslim and Islamophobe, Chessie Williams has authored a piece, portraying his absolute ignorance of both Islamic and Christian theologies. I personally apologize on his behalf for the time anyone has wasted on reading his article. With that in mind, let’s begin to analyse what he’s said and what reality would prefer to have us believe:

“..Adam forgot and his offspring forgot, Adam made a mistake and his offspring made mistakes”. Hadeeth in  At-Tirmidhi also in Tafsir Ibn Kathir

This is what he begins with, and I’m very sure that what he’s attempting to portray cannot be made extant from this quotation. All this hadith is saying, is that Adam {as} made mistakes and his offspring (mankind) also made mistakes, this is part of the human nature which Allaah further explains through His Prophet {saw}:

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “I swear by Him in whose hand is my soul, if you were a people who did not commit sin, Allah would take you away and replace you with a people who would sin and then seek Allah’s forgiveness so He could forgive them.” [Sahīh Muslim (2687)]

Therefore it is in this regard, that Adam’s {as} sinning and his offspring’s sinning, is allowed (these acts against God’s commands) because it has a purpose and that purpose is for Allaah to forgive them of their sins. This then puts Chessie’s quote into context, the hadith does not mean because Adam {as} sinned, that we would all sin, but that Adam’s {as} sinning is part of why God created us, and that sinning is what God expects of us humans, so that we may seek forgiveness from Him. Therefore Adam’s {as} sinning is not permanent upon him, as that would mean forgiveness was never an option, yet we can logically derive the view that sinning presupposes forgiveness through the Hadith in Sahih al Muslim. He then goes on to make a series of incoherent and unintelligible statements:

Islam claims that Allah forgave Adam of the sin of eating from the tree(in the middle of the Garden), there is no original Sin, everyone is born sinless on the natural inclination of Islam, and Sin is purely individualist(No concept of Adam being mankind’s Federal head). Allah doesn’t allow anyone to carry the burden of another persons Sin(certainly not Adams).

Perhaps it would be rash of me to point this out, but I am perturbed by the ignorance that Chessie Williams is spewing. To begin with, indeed God is just, He does not place a burden upon a person where it is not due, He is Ar Rahman, Ar Rahim, (Most Loving, Most Caring) and it is in this light that Islamic theology accepts that each human enters this world sinless, they have not yet had the chance to sin before birth and by entering the world, they now have a medium to exercise their freewill, wherein that can choose to obey or disobey. It is absolutely unjust and irrational to think that God would cast a being with sin before they’ve yet had the chance to do so. Perhaps this is the unjust God which Chessie believes in, but this is not the nature of the God which Islam allows us to have faith in.

Secondly it is absurd to think that because Adam {as} sinned that we all have inherited his sin, if that is the case, should we also not inherit his good? Where is the original good deed in Christianity? Rather, it is a faith which looks to devalue the human ability, whereas we as Muslims accept the reality that we are adults, we do live and function in this world and therefore we accept the responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Perhaps it is ideal for Chessie and his zealot Christian brethren to have a fanciful belief that they are not responsible for their actions, but this is petulant and inane. Adam {as} sinning does not negate him from being the first man or the first human on the earth as Chessie would have us believe. In fact the Bible agrees with Islam in that no one person bears the sin of another:

The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him. – Ezekiel 18:20

as well as…

Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin. – Deuteronomy 24:16

Therefore we ask that Chessie takes responsibility for his actions and comes to his own, that he is indeed an adult. Even if you assume it’s a nonsensical Islamic belief, he cannot and should not ignore the commands of His Lord from within the Bible. If that is the case, then indeed his faith is as fraudulent as they come. Chessie then provides a short chronological list of the events that led to Adam {as} being removed from Jannah. He ends this list with a presupposed contradiction:

But what happens after that is the source of contradiction.
5 Allah orders Adam to get down from Jannah to earth, and from then on the following consequences take place:
A. He is enemies with Iblis.
B. Suffers death, sickness, and disease
C His children in turn suffer death, sickness, and disease
D. Man is subject to continual sinning, when before Adams Sin there was no Sin in man
E. Man is subject to being led astray from their pure fitrah and now risks going to hell
F. The world it seas, land and inhabitants have to now suffer because of Adams Sin.
“Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have wrought, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return.[30.42] Ar-rum .

Forgive his appalling grammar, it took me a while to fully comprehend what his point was, I do understand that he’s under a lot of stress after being unable to defend himself from his own misgivings, but that does not excuse him from taking sometime to be considerate and accept that people would actually read what he writes.

The Qur’an answers all of his claims in one ayah, before Adam {as} sinned, God said in the Qur’an why He was creating Adam {as} and that He knew what Adam {as} would do on the earth:

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَ‌بُّكَ لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْ‌ضِ خَلِيفَةً ۖ قَالُوا أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
Remember, when your Lord said to the angels: “I have to place a trustee on the earth,” they said: “Will You place one there who would create disorder and shed blood, while we intone Your litanies and sanctify Your name?” And God said: “I know what you do not know.” – Qur’an : Suratul Baqarah (2) : 30.

Therefore, Adam {as} was created to be placed on earth and God knew Adam {as} would sin. The sinning of mankind isn’t due to Adam {as} sinning, but the nature of mankind, according to the ayah, is that mankind’s feeble nature would allow them to sin as it is allowed by God. Also, Adam {as} being sent to the earth was the purpose of his creation as we read from the Ayah above. In this regard, the Qur’an clearly refutes Chessie, Adam {as} was created to live on the earth, this was part of God’s plan (Qadr) as we read from the Ayah and that God created Adam {as} knowing that Adam {as} and his progeny would do evil on the earth, as God granted them the freewill to do so.

Whereas in Islam, Adam {as} being sent to the earth and God allowing him and his progeny to live here was God’s plan, in Christianity it was a mistake, and therefore this is why Christians have to create excuses for mankind being sent to earth and doing evil:

The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. – Genesis 6:6

Recall, above we read that Chessie’s concept of God is one who creates man with sin, so God from the on start has condemned men, then God places men on earth due to a mistake which He did not foresee and therefore God regretted that He placed mankind on earth because this was not what God intended. This therefore brings us to two conclusions:

(1) Islam holds the belief that Adam {as} had freewill and was created with it, God created Adam {as} and his progeny to live on earth, knowing they would sin. This was all His plan.

(2) Christianity holds the belief that Adam’s {as} progeny are born with sin, God was not all knowing and did not foresee the evil His creation would do and therefore God made a mistake (He regretted) sending men to live on earth, it was not His plan.

Chessie then proceeds to demolish his own arguments further by making the following statement:

If Adam was truly forgiven then his state should have reverted back to what it was prior to his Sin, but instead as demonstrated(from the Quran) everything changed including the very nature of Mankind, and how he related to His creator.

Chessie, I advise you to actually read the Qur’an, let us recall once more why Adam {as} was created:

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَ‌بُّكَ لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْ‌ضِ خَلِيفَةً ۖ قَالُوا أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
Remember, when your Lord said to the angels: “I have to place a trustee on the earth,” they said: “Will You place one there who would create disorder and shed blood, while we intone Your litanies and sanctify Your name?” And God said: “I know what you do not know.” – Qur’an : Suratul Baqarah (2) : 30.

Adam {as} was created to be sent to have his abode be earth (temporarily), until Yawmul Qiyamah (the Day of Judgement). This was God’s plan, because God is All Knowing and He Himself has said, “I know what you do not know”. Indeed, Chessie has not read the Qur’an therefore he could not have come to this understanding. Ignorance is bliss for Chessie as it allows him to pervert his understanding of Islam, one would think that a self claimant to being highly educated in Islam would know what the 30th verse of the second chapter says, but alas, we find fools everywhere, Chessie is by no means any exception. As the famous Latin saying goes….”damnant quod non intelligunt“, they condemn what they do not understand.

He then tries to portray Adam {as} as being devoid of God’s mercy, that Adam {as} is incapable of having a good relationship with His Lord:

We know from narrations that Sin cause’s one to be banned from having direct relational communion with God…

Yet, the ayat he references deals with the Day of Judgement:

“Nay! Surely, they (evil doers) will be veiled from seeing their Lord that Day” al-Mutafiffoon 83:15

Yet, God in the Qur’an refutes Chessie’s claim again, God praises Adam {as} and lauds him as one who has received God’s grace and mercy:

Thereafter Adam received certain words from his Lord, and He turned towards him; truly He turns, and is All-compassionate.- Qur’an 2:37.

To summarize, Adam {as} being sent to the earth was one of his purposes for being created and his allowance of freewill to do good or cause evil was determined by Allaah, it was not an unexpected surprise which caused God to have a panic attack and have subsequent regret and grievances as Genesis 6:6 would lead us to believe. God willing, Chessie  Williams does read this and in doing so, does learn to read the first 30 verses of the second chapter of the Qur’an.

wa Allaahu Alam.
[and God knows best.]