and Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: "Had he not been of the angels, he would not have been commanded to prostrate, and he was in charge of the treasury of the lower heaven." He said: And Qatāda used to say: "He strayed (janna) from the obedience of his Lord." (1)
694 - And al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaḥyā narrated to us, he said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, he said: Maʿmar informed us, from Qatāda, regarding His statement: "Except Iblīs, he was of the jinn," he said: He was from a tribe of the angels called the Jinn. (2)
695 - And Ibn Ḥumayd narrated to us, he said: Salama narrated to us, he said: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq narrated to us, he said: As for the Arabs, they say: The jinn are none other than everyone who conceals himself (ijtanna) and thus is not seen. As for His statement: "Except Iblīs, he was of the jinn," meaning he was of the angels, and that is because the angels concealed themselves and were not seen. Allah, glorious is His praise, has said: {And they have made between Him and the jinn a lineage, but the jinn have already known that they will indeed be brought [for punishment]} [Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt: 158], and that was because of the saying of Quraysh: "Indeed, the angels are the daughters of Allah," so Allah says: If the angels were My daughters, then Iblīs is among them, and they have established a lineage between Me and Iblīs and his offspring. He said: And al-Aʿshā—Aʿshā of Banū Qays ibn Thaʿlaba al-Bakrī—said, as he was mentioning Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd and what Allah had given him:
And if anything were immortal or long-lived, ... it would have been Sulaymān, who was free from time. (3)
Notes
- (1) The narration: 693—we did not find it anywhere else.
- (2) The narration: 694—we also did not find it anywhere else. The Hadith master Ibn Kathīr said (5:297)—after citing many narrations on such meanings: "Many narrations have been transmitted regarding this from the Predecessors (Salaf). Most of them are from the Isra'iliyyat (Judeo-Christian traditions) that are transmitted to be examined, and God knows best about the state of many of them. Among them are those that can be definitively judged as false, due to contradicting the truth in our possession. In the Qur'an there is sufficient sufficiency from all earlier reports besides it, because they are hardly free from alteration, addition, and omission, and many things have been fabricated in them. They do not possess meticulous Hadith masters who eliminate from them the distortions of the extremists and the fabrications of the falsifiers—such as this nation possesses of Imams, scholars, masters, God-fearing men, righteous and noble individuals, master critics, and excellent Hadith masters. They recorded the Hadith and refined it, clarifying its Sahih (Authentic), its Hasan (Good), its Da'if (Weak), its rejected, its Fabricated, its abandoned, and its lied. They identified the fabricators, the liars, the unknown narrators, and other categories of men. All of that was to safeguard the prophetic domain and the Muhammadan station—the Seal of the Messengers and the Master of Mankind, peace and blessings of God be upon him—lest a lie be attributed to him or something not from him be narrated on his authority. May God be pleased with them and make them pleased, and make the Gardens of Firdaus their abode. And He has done so."
- (3) Supplement to Dīwān al-Aʿshā, p. 243, and al-Aḍdād by Ibn al-Anbārī, p. 293. He did not mean by time (al-dahr) here an extended period, but rather the misfortunes and calamities of time, as ʿAdī ibn Zayd said, making the calamities of time time itself:
O you who gloat and reproach with time,
Are you immune and unscathed?
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