وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ ٱسْجُدُوا۟ لِءَادَمَ فَسَجَدُوٓا۟ إِلَّآ إِبْلِيسَ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْجِنِّ فَفَسَقَ عَنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّهِۦٓ … وَكَانَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنُ أَكْثَرَ شَىْءٍ جَدَلًا
"When We said to the angels, 'Prostrate to Adam'… except Iblīs; he was of the jinn and he departed from the command of his Lord… Man is of all things the most given to dispute."
| Place | Emphasis |
|---|---|
| al-Baqara 2/30-38 | The vicegerency and the names |
| Ṣād 38/71-85 | The analogy — anā khayrun minh |
| al-Kahf 18/50 | Kāna mina'l-jinni fa-fasaqa ʿan amri rabbih — his being of the jinn and his departing from the command |
ف-س-ق root: the date's coming out of its skin — to overflow a boundary. It was treated in al-Ḥujurāt at 49/6 and in al-Baqara at 2/26.
أَفَتَتَّخِذُونَهُۥ وَذُرِّيَّتَهُۥٓ أَوْلِيَآءَ مِن دُونِى وَهُمْ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ — the same line was treated in Fāṭir at 35/6 (fa'ttakhidhūhu ʿaduwwā); I rely on that treatment.
The ج-د-ل root was the whole backbone of Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) — there its five occurrences were tabulated and it was recorded that what is condemned is dispute without support. And in al-Baqara at 2/197 the concrete sense of the root (to twist a rope tightly) was analysed. I rely on that treatment.
The expression here is worth recording: akthara shayʾin jadalā — "of all things the most disputatious".
I record this as an observation: the sentence names dispute as the most marked characteristic of man. And in the twenty-second verse of the sūra dispute was itself limited (fa-lā tumāri fīhim illā mirāʾan ẓāhirā). The two verses are read together: the tendency is identified, then a limit is placed.