sincere advisors.'"} He said: So Eve cut the tree, and the tree bled. Their plumage that was upon them fell off, and they began to gather and fasten on themselves the leaves of Paradise. Their Lord called out to them: {Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you that the Devil is a clear enemy to you?} (22) Why did you eat from it when I had forbidden you from it? He said, "O Lord, Eve fed me." He said to Eve, "Why did you feed him?" She said, "The serpent commanded me." He said to the serpent, "Why did you command her?" It said, "Iblīs commanded me." He said, "Accursed and banished! As for you, Eve, just as you caused the tree to bleed, you shall bleed at every new moon; as for you, serpent, I shall cut off your legs so you will walk slithering on your face, and whoever meets you will smash your head with a stone. Go down, some of you as enemies to others."

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Abū Jaʿfar said: These reports have been narrated—from those we narrated them from among the Companions, the Successors (Tabi'i), and others—concerning the description of how Iblīs, the enemy of God, slipped Adam and his wife until he expelled them from Paradise.

And the most deserving of truth in our view is that which agrees with the Book of God. God—exalted be His mention—has informed us about Iblīs that he whispered to Adam and his wife to reveal to them what was hidden from them of their private parts, and that he said to them, {"Your Lord only forbade you from this tree lest you become angels or become of the immortals,"} and that he {"swore to them both, 'Indeed, I am to you one of the sincere advisors,'"} bringing about their fall through deception. Thus, in His informing—majestic is His praise—about the enemy of God swearing to Adam and his wife by saying to them, {"Indeed, I am to you one of the sincere advisors,"} there is clear proof that he addressed them directly himself, either visibly to their eyes or concealed inside another creature. That is because it is not intelligible in Arabic speech to say, "So-and-so swore to so-and-so in such-and-such," when he merely set in motion a cause by which he reached him without actually swearing to him. Swearing cannot occur merely by setting a cause in motion. Likewise, His statement, {"So the Devil whispered to him,"} if that had come from him to Adam in the same manner as it comes from him to his offspring—by beautifying the eating of what God forbade Adam to eat from the tree, without directly addressing him with the speech and tricks by which he slipped him—God, majestic is His praise, would not have said, {"And he swore to them both, 'Indeed, I am to you one of the sincere advisors.'"} Just as it is not permissible today for anyone who commits a sin to say, "Iblīs swore to me that he was a sincere advisor to me regarding the sin he beautified for me that I committed." Likewise, what occurred with Adam and his wife, had it been in the manner that occurs between Iblīs today and the offspring of Adam, God, majestic is His praise, would not have said, {"And he swore to them both, 'Indeed, I am to you one of the sincere advisors.'"} Rather, that occurred—God willing—in the manner stated by Ibn ʿAbbās and those who held his view.