Sapient Thoughts #30: Does Adam's height of 60 cubits make sense? | Mohammed Hijab (2021-04-03) ​

0:00:02 [Music]
0:00:13 welcome to another episode of
0:00:15 thoughts where we discuss the
0:00:16 philosophical issues where we
0:00:18 tackle the arguments of the detractors
0:00:20 of islam in addition to making our own
0:00:22 arguments for the veracity of islam
0:00:24 today inshallah we're going to be
0:00:25 dealing with a hadith
0:00:27 which references adam alaihi islam a
0:00:30 prophet of islam
0:00:32 as being 60 cubits tall which is like 27
0:00:35 meters
0:00:36 and they say this is unbelievable and
0:00:38 impossible but before we get to this
0:00:39 hadith
0:00:40 let's talk about the islamic stance on
0:00:42 the theory of evolution generally
0:00:44 speaking talking about the
0:00:45 theory of evolution muslims don't have
0:00:47 an issue or shouldn't really have an
0:00:48 issue with
0:00:49 speciation adaptation or even evolution
0:00:53 of animals because we believe
0:00:55 that there's nothing explicit in the
0:00:57 quran one way the other and actually
0:00:58 done a podcast
0:00:59 with abdullah sheikh abdullah is
0:01:02 a prominent figure in saudi arabia who
0:01:05 researches these matters and well
0:01:06 published
0:01:07 in this field and were in my discussion
0:01:09 with him and this was his opinion
0:01:11 so which is quite frankly like 99.9
0:01:14 percent if we look at it from a mass
0:01:16 perspective
0:01:17 really 99.9 of the theory the
0:01:20 uh the issue we have um we take issue
0:01:24 with or the point of evolution that
0:01:25 slither of
0:01:26 which really diametrically opposes some
0:01:28 of the islamic narratives is
0:01:30 uh human evolution now obviously we have
0:01:32 a narrative we have a narrative in islam
0:01:34 which is that the adam ali was created
0:01:37 directly or this prophet adam was
0:01:38 created directly by allah
0:01:40 by god almighty and there are many
0:01:42 things which differentiate human beings
0:01:44 from the rest of the animal kingdom
0:01:46 morality the
0:01:48 the ability to question why you know
0:01:51 this many different languages
0:01:54 civilization and so on and so forth
0:01:56 and it couldn't have been the case we
0:01:58 would argue that we can actually in any
0:02:00 way
0:02:01 be equated to the rest of the animal
0:02:03 kingdom and there's something special
0:02:04 about human beings
0:02:06 allah says in the quran that he has
0:02:08 dignified the children of adam so
0:02:11 we we don't necessarily agree or
0:02:12 disagree we can remain agnostic as to
0:02:14 uh you know darwinian evolution with
0:02:16 other animals but as it relates to uh
0:02:18 the human being
0:02:18 there is something special about the
0:02:20 human being and that is why allah
0:02:23 created human being directly and
0:02:26 in this hadith there's indication that
0:02:27 he created adam is
0:02:29 60 cubits tall now the question is this
0:02:32 seems unscientific on many grounds
0:02:34 and i'll tell you what on three major
0:02:36 grounds number one is biological
0:02:38 number two is archaeological and or
0:02:41 paleontological you could say as well
0:02:43 from a fossil record perspective
0:02:45 and number three uh looking at the kind
0:02:48 of
0:02:49 disparity in sizes if we do assume that
0:02:52 there was a human being of
0:02:53 such great magnitude in terms of size
0:02:56 how can we
0:02:57 explain the fact that human beings are
0:03:00 like
0:03:01 give or take you know six foot tall give
0:03:03 or take you know a
0:03:04 half a meter or whatever it may be or
0:03:06 more right but
0:03:07 how can you explain this huge disparity
0:03:10 in the fact that you're saying that you
0:03:12 believe in adam who's 27 meters tall and
0:03:15 and a human being now which is you know
0:03:17 typically anything between
0:03:18 five foot five to six foot five and
0:03:20 obviously there are extremities on
0:03:22 on both sides of that equation as people
0:03:24 are taller than six or five like myself
0:03:25 and people are shorter than five foot
0:03:27 five like many many people
0:03:29 so here there's two parts of the hadith
0:03:32 which we need to pay attention to
0:03:34 which is the first part of the hadith
0:03:36 talks about that allah created
0:03:38 them 60 cubits
0:03:42 tall and in terms of hadith
0:03:45 there are some narrations which don't
0:03:47 mention this 60 qubits
0:03:49 and that the the there are some
0:03:51 narrations that do mention the 60 qubits
0:03:53 but we don't say that just because there
0:03:56 are some narrations that don't mention
0:03:57 the 60 cubits
0:03:58 that the narrations that do mention
0:04:00 these qubits are erroneous
0:04:02 that makes no sense actually uh this
0:04:04 this doesn't and some people have
0:04:05 attempted to argue
0:04:07 that this means that this should be a
0:04:09 disbanded known that doesn't mean that's
0:04:10 not how they have these science works
0:04:12 so that's the first thing other people
0:04:14 say the second part of the hadith which
0:04:16 talks about
0:04:21 that the the the creation is um
0:04:24 is is becoming smaller and smaller until
0:04:26 now they found it problematic because
0:04:29 even himself he mentions how could it be
0:04:31 the case that
0:04:32 this is happening right that and we can
0:04:35 see adam tha mood's
0:04:36 uh kind of indwellings the the
0:04:40 archaeological remnants of their
0:04:41 indwellings and we can see that their
0:04:42 houses and that
0:04:43 you know the doors and so on were not so
0:04:45 tall and he assumed
0:04:47 and without by the way nasa and evidence
0:04:50 that
0:04:50 uh were closer to adam than they were to
0:04:54 us human beings
0:04:55 and obviously the only real evidence we
0:04:57 have anything between
0:05:00 and adam alaihissalam is
0:05:03 there's no evidence i mean there's only
0:05:05 israelite or kind of biblical narrations
0:05:07 so potentially he was using those to
0:05:09 kind of raise his eyebrow but he did not
0:05:11 say this hadith
0:05:13 or defective as many believe that he did
0:05:16 now having oh because of nast reasons or
0:05:19 content reasons
0:05:20 going now forward to answering the
0:05:22 contentions there are
0:05:24 variations of this hadith which refer to
0:05:26 fist sama
0:05:27 okay that this was in the heaven not
0:05:30 heaven
0:05:31 as in jannah but now obviously if you
0:05:34 look at the quranic cosmology
0:05:36 heaven al-jannah is above okay because
0:05:39 obviously we know that the prophet was
0:05:40 taken there in this
0:05:42 so it could be the case that this height
0:05:45 and this
0:05:46 mega size of 27 meters is specific to
0:05:49 jannah
0:05:49 and there's nothing wrong linguistically
0:05:51 in believing that because obviously we
0:05:53 believe that
0:05:54 adam ali has started his journey
0:05:57 yes in heaven i mean we have a whole
0:05:59 narrative where he was in a completely
0:06:00 different place
0:06:01 and then allah he sent him down to the
0:06:03 earth he sent him down
0:06:05 to the earth yes he's created from the
0:06:07 elements of the earth but he was
0:06:09 in many ways an extraterrestrial because
0:06:11 he came from a completely different
0:06:12 dimension
0:06:13 and he came to this earth now in that
0:06:16 transition period could he have shrunk
0:06:18 could allah have made him smaller that's
0:06:20 also a possibility we're not
0:06:22 disregarding that as a possibility but
0:06:24 there's no evidence of that from the
0:06:25 quran sunnah
0:06:26 so we can't say that that is what
0:06:27 happened and what we will say is this
0:06:29 let's assume that allah he brought adam
0:06:32 down
0:06:33 he was 60 cubits either in heaven and
0:06:37 on earth or in heaven or on the earth
0:06:39 but let's just assume that he was
0:06:40 60 cubits in heaven and on the earth so
0:06:42 when he came down
0:06:43 he was also 27 27 meters which by the
0:06:46 way now we're starting to make
0:06:48 assumptions which we don't necessarily
0:06:50 need to be
0:06:51 uh need to make we can say no this he
0:06:53 was like that high in heaven
0:06:55 and when he came on the earth he became
0:06:56 normal height that's
0:06:58 something you can assume from the from
0:07:00 the source but let's
0:07:02 not assume that let's say he was 27
0:07:04 meters on the earth
0:07:05 what's the problem what's the problem
0:07:08 the problem are three different things
0:07:09 now
0:07:09 number one biology if we use the human
0:07:13 anatomy that we have today as the
0:07:14 reference point if
0:07:16 if the if the human anatomy today is the
0:07:18 reference point
0:07:20 how could it be that something that tall
0:07:23 or human being that tall
0:07:25 the bone structure can maintain that
0:07:27 kind of size right because it will
0:07:29 collapse because of the weight
0:07:30 of the human being well this is a
0:07:32 fallacy because we're not starting with
0:07:34 the human being today as the reference
0:07:36 point we're starting with
0:07:37 why would you start with today's human
0:07:39 being as a reference point the reference
0:07:40 point
0:07:41 is that 27 meter human being that we're
0:07:45 talking about
0:07:46 that's the reference point so if someone
0:07:47 says well we know that if we keep
0:07:48 doubling sizes
0:07:49 as i've even heard some some muslims try
0:07:51 and say keep doubling sizes and height
0:07:54 then the height will be so the tall and
0:07:56 then the weight will be so much and then
0:07:57 the
0:07:58 bones will not be able to handle that
0:08:00 density of the bones will not be able to
0:08:01 handle that
0:08:02 you're using your reference point uh
0:08:05 as the human anatomy of today and then
0:08:08 doing chaos backwards
0:08:09 which is a cresce malforce if you like
0:08:11 or a false type of analogy
0:08:13 it's a different kind it's false kind of
0:08:14 analogy so that's the first problem you
0:08:16 can say oh
0:08:17 it's inconceivable that human anatomy
0:08:19 can can handle that size
0:08:21 well it's only inconceivable on the
0:08:23 basis of
0:08:24 and analyzing today's human activity
0:08:25 that's the first thing the second thing
0:08:27 we may say
0:08:28 is someone could say well um we talked
0:08:31 about the biological problems
0:08:32 fossilization how comes there is no
0:08:34 fossil record
0:08:36 of such a huge human the national
0:08:38 science foundation
0:08:39 says that 99.9
0:08:43 99.9 oh my
0:08:46 99.9 of species have not undergone
0:08:49 fossilization so fossilization you
0:08:51 expect
0:08:52 to find one specimen
0:08:56 of a fossil of a human that we don't
0:08:59 know tens or 100 000 whatever is years
0:09:01 that he existed before
0:09:03 no way this is like finding a needle in
0:09:06 the haystack
0:09:06 it's ridiculous to expect to find
0:09:08 fossils like this is absolutely absurd
0:09:10 it's such a redundant redundant
0:09:14 interrogation so that that one would be
0:09:16 put to the side
0:09:17 the third now interrogation is well
0:09:20 how can we conceive of such a disparity
0:09:23 between
0:09:24 uh humans within this or any kind of
0:09:27 animal within the same species like this
0:09:29 let's say we don't accept that we don't
0:09:31 accept that you can have a 27
0:09:34 meter human being and then you can have
0:09:36 a six-foot human being
0:09:37 and that that disparity existed and they
0:09:39 say humans have been around for 350 000
0:09:42 years which is by the way estimates we
0:09:43 don't have to go with because they keep
0:09:44 changing those quite frankly
0:09:46 but let's just assume for the sake of
0:09:47 argument are you saying to me is my
0:09:49 response
0:09:50 that you have there's no species within
0:09:53 the species that
0:09:55 exhibit this decrease in size
0:09:58 this dramatic exponential decrease in
0:10:01 size because i can give you an example
0:10:02 of the dwarf elephants
0:10:04 which the general proceedings national
0:10:05 academy of science
0:10:07 shows the dwarf elephants were 220
0:10:10 pounds
0:10:11 they they went down in 800 000 years
0:10:14 according to
0:10:15 the journal in 800 000 years they went
0:10:18 down 100 times in size
0:10:20 so they were they were 100 times bigger
0:10:23 than they were they became dwarf
0:10:24 elephants 220 pounds 100 kilos
0:10:27 which would mean that i'm bigger than
0:10:29 those elephants me personally the one
0:10:30 who's talking to you on the imagine an
0:10:32 elephant
0:10:32 that i can pick up or that you can pick
0:10:35 up and that would be heavier to pick me
0:10:37 up
0:10:37 than an elephant i mean this is just to
0:10:40 give you some kind of visuals here
0:10:42 so if you can believe
0:10:45 in an elephant that is
0:10:48 that size because you're looking at the
0:10:50 fossil record and you're
0:10:52 making your uh evolutionarily uh
0:10:54 evolution
0:10:55 uh inferences then why can you not
0:10:58 believe in
0:10:58 a human being that's much bigger that's
0:11:01 just one of many examples
0:11:03 but within a very short time span in
0:11:05 evolutionary terms
0:11:07 so why could not that happen to the
0:11:10 human
0:11:11 i mean if you really want to believe it
0:11:12 on your paradigm why could not that
0:11:14 happen to the human being
0:11:16 so it's okay when you say these things
0:11:17 but it's not okay when we just say these
0:11:19 things you make a mockery of the hadith
0:11:21 but the hadith makes the mockery out of
0:11:23 you because this is actually what you
0:11:24 believe in as well
0:11:25 and hopefully that answers the question
0:11:26 was salaam alaikum sallallahu