The Qurʾānic version of the creation of Ādam, who was singled out to teach the angels (malāʾika) the names of all things, is central for the understanding of the position of angels in Islam. It relates that God ordered the angels to prostrate themselves before the first man and first prophet in Islam and this they did, save the rebellious angel, Satan/Iblīs, who refuses to honour God’s command.
This paper will revisit the visual traditions of the paradigmatic events of the Qurʾānic narrative associated with Ādam and interpretively charter the iconography and the iconographic sources of the portrayal of its protagonists, the supernatural creatures (angels and devils), ophidian creatures (serpents and dragons) and the first of man of the creation myth and his wife, Ḥawwā.
It will appraise the role of the spiritual beings, created to obey, submit and worship God, by examining the ritual devotions and performance by the angels, the symbolism of the form and the direction of their worship, as well as their role in the articulation of sacred space in these scenes. This finds reflection in the iconographic representations of the newly created human, Ādam (in some instances together with Ḥawwā), enthroned in primordial Paradise receiving the acknowledgement of the angels (with the exception of Iblīs) who out of obedience to the divine command, in some instances; are shown to assume the position of Islamic ritual prayer (sajada). The idyllic life is brought to an abrupt end when Ādam and Ḥawwā eat the forbidden fruit (or, in Islamic tradition, the grain), and, under the gaze of the supernatural beings, are expelled from the garden of Eden; the sojourn on earth also leads to the Ādamic associations of the Kaʿba, the locus par excellence of the paradigmatic interplay of spiritual beings, ophidian creatures and the first prophet.
The concomitant clash of opposites, of benevolent and malevolent beings, is shown as constant struggle, coexistence of opposites or may hint at a transcendence of opposites. This is mirrored in the varied roles assigned to Iblīs as well as his link with the serpent, or the dragon. The review of the diverse visual traditions of elements of this conception of creation with its original conditions endeavours to unearth further metaphorical applications of symbolic pointers in Islamic religious thought, iconographic correspondences and layers of a distinct religious aesthetic vocabulary.
