A Brief Reflection on Surah Al-Hijr (15) and Hubristic Doubt

In the surah Al-Hijr (the Stone), God highlights a kind of doubt which is rooted in hubris.  After explaining the origin of the universe and how disbelievers doubt it is created by God, even if God “opened a gateway into Heaven for them and they rose through it, higher and higher, they would still say, ‘Our eyes are hallucinating. We are bewitched.’” (15:14-15), because their hearts, out of hubris, are not attuned to Truth, then we have the story of creation of human beings and how another “doubt” (Satan’s doubt), out of the disposition of hubris, creates the cosmic war. 

What is interesting is that in both these cases the root of problem is not an innocent intellectual doubt, which is always legitimized in the Quran, but it is a kind dispositional doubt that creates a hiatus in the individual and cosmic soul/body: it is a doubt based on “I am better”, doubt based on “separation and disconnection”, doubt out of the illusion of autonomy.  

In the first case, a variation of disbelieves’ doubt is based on a blunt belief that brute and dead proximate causes should explain everything, otherwise we would violate the law of sufficient reason: nothing is without reason.  This identification of “reason” with causal law-like connections between material and phenomenal objects is rooted in a disposition of the soul, which translates itself into a presupposition: there is no God; don’t believe it under any condition; there is only interaction of objects (atoms, particles); and whatever cannot be inferred from the witness of our senses is not true.  This whole dispositional doubt is based on a despair and seeing our being here as a chance event, which turns into an ethical downfall.

The second doubt, the Satan’s doubt is purely based on hubris.  Surah Al-Hijr continues:

“We created man out of dried clay formed from dark mud– the jinn We created before, from the fire of scorching wind.  Your Lord said to the angels, ‘I will create a mortal out of dried clay, formed from dark mud.  When I have fashioned him and breathed My spirit into him, bow down before him,’ and the angels all did so.  But not Iblis: he refused to bow down like the others.  God said, ‘Iblis, why did you not bow down like the others?’ and he answered, ‘I will not bow to a mortal You created from dried clay, formed from dark mud.’  ‘Get out of here!’ said God. ‘You are an outcast, rejected until the Day of Judgement.’  Iblis said, ‘My Lord, give me respite until the Day when they are raised from the dead.’  ‘You have respite,’ said God, ‘until the Day of the Appointed Time.’  Iblis then said to God, ‘Because You have put me in the wrong, I will lure mankind on earth and put them in the wrong, all except Your devoted servants.’ God said, ‘[Devotion] is a straight path to Me: you will have no power over My servants, only over the ones who go astray and follow you.” (15:26-42)

Satan thinks because it is made of fire (a jinn, not angel), it is better than human beings.  Iblis (Satan) doubts God’s wisdom, after God breathes God’s spirit into human being, and calls itself better than human beings.  In the Quran, as I discussed in “Reflections on Some Verses of the Quran”, God takes charge for everything, good and evil, belief and disbelief, in the sense that God could stop evil and disbelief but is not willing to do so.  God could illuminate Satan about the truth and convince Satan to bow down to Adam, but God didn’t do that.  So, Satan says: “Because You have put me in the wrong, I will lure mankind on earth and put them in the wrong.”  The Quran repeatedly expresses that if God wanted there would be no dispute and disagreement and no disbelief and evil, but God treats us as those whom God’s spirit of wisdom is already breathed into.  God wants our maturity to arrive to the fact that, while we exist as independent beings with freedom of the will, we ought to purify ourselves with knowing our shadows and dissolve the doubts that are rooted in the permeation of lie and hubris in our souls.  Not strange that after showing this ethical corruption appears in disbelief and disconnect from God and consequently to ethical downfall in the story of Abraham and Lot, God states:

“We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them without a true purpose: the Hour will certainly come, so [Prophet] bear with them graciously.  Your Lord is the All Knowing Creator.  We have given you the seven oft-recited verses.” (15:85-87)

[Surah “The Opening”:

1 In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy!

2 Praise belongs to God,

Lord (The Arabic root r–b–b has connotations of caring and nurturing in addition to lordship, and this should be borne in mind wherever the term occurs and is rendered ‘lord’.) of the Worlds, (Al-alamin in Arabic means all the worlds, of mankind, angels, animals, plants, this world, the next, and so forth.)

3 the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy,

4 Master of the Day of Judgement.

5 It is You we worship; it is You we ask for help.

6 Guide us to the straight path:

7 the path of those You have blessed, those who incur no anger (Note that the verb here is not attributed to God)

And who have not gone astray.]

And then the surah continues:

“…and the whole glorious Quran. Do not look longingly at the good things We have given some to enjoy. Do not grieve over the [disbelievers], but lower your wings over the believers and say, ‘I am here to give plain warning,’ like the [warning] We have sent down for those who divide themselves into bands 91 and abuse the Quran––by your Lord, We will question them all about their deeds. 94 So proclaim openly what you have been commanded [to say], and ignore the idolaters.  We are enough for you against all those who ridicule your message, who set up another god beside God– they will come to know.  We are well aware that your heart is weighed down by what they say.  Celebrate the glory of your Lord and be among those who bow down to Him: worship your Lord until what is certain comes to you.” (15:88-98)

 

And this is the purpose of the creation of the universe and human beings.  We are part of the divine cosmic endeavor and war for truth: the straight path to God without doubt.  First and foremost, this “war” is spiritual.  And it doesn’t mean killing intellectual doubts but arriving at certainty through reflection and wisdom.  However, there are other kinds of “doubt”, such as the doubt of Satan and those whose soul and body is tainted with hubris, those who set intellectual and phenomenal knowledge as the only knowledge, who won’t be able to see the truth, unless they purify themselves through ethical-spiritual practices and remove the sickness of their hearts.