Note [original edition] : They attributed
companions unto him, &c.] For the explaining of this whole passage, the commentators tell the
following story.
They say, that when
Eve was big with her first child, the devil came to
her and asked her whether she knew what she carried within her, and which way
she should be delivered of it, suggesting that possibly it might be a beast.
She, being unable to give an answer to this question, went in a fright to
Adam, and acquainted him with the matter, who, not knowing what to think of
it, grew sad and pensive. Whereupon the devil appeared to her again (or, as
others say, to
Adam), and pretended that he by his prayers would obtain of
God
that she might be safely delivered of a son in
Adam’s likeness, provided they
would promise to name him
Abda’lhareth, or the servant of
al Hareth (which was
the devil’s name among the angels), instead of
Abd’allah, or the servant of
God, as
Adam had designed. This proposal was agreed to, and accordingly, when
the child was born, they gave it that name, upon which it immediately died
3.
And with this
Adam and
Eve are here taxed, as an act of idolatry. The story
looks like a rabbinical fiction, and seems to have no other foundation than
Cain’s being called by
Moses Obed adâmah, that is,
a tiller of the ground,
which might be translated into
Arabic by
Abd’alhareth.
But
al Beidawi, thinking it unlikely that a prophet (as
Adam is, by the
Mohammedans, supposed to have been) should be guilty of such an action,
imagines the
Korân in this place means
Kosai, one of
Mohammed’s ancestors, and
his wife, who begged issue of
God, and having four sons granted them, called
their names
Abd Menâf,
Abd Shams,
Abd’al Uzza, and
Abd’al Dâr, after the names
of the four principal idols of the
Koreish. And the following words also he
supposes to relate to their idolatrous posterity.
-
3
Idem, Yahya. V. D’Herbelot. Bibl. Orient. p. 428, & Selden.
de jure nat. see. Hebr. lib. 5. c. 8.