And We said “Adam dwell and your wife in the garden and eat thereof with ease where you desire; but do not come near this tree lest you be evildoers.” [God] settled [Adam] in the garden but with his entry established the tree [by which he was] tested. If not for the prior decree this blossoming tree would have been changed to a withered one its greenery dried out its existence forgotten and Adam's hand would not have reached for its leaves to piece them together [to clothe] himself and what happened to him would not have happened. If this tree had kept growing so that his hand could not reach it all that confusion would not have occurred in his affair but what had been predetermined appeared from the decree. There was no place better than the garden no human being more intelligent than Adam no better counselor than the suggestions of the Real to him. There was nothing unusual lā gharība prior to [Adam's] doing what he did and no resolve lā ʿaẓīma more powerful than his resolve. But divine power cannot be contested and the decree cannot be opposed wa-lakinna al-qudrata lā tukābara wa-l-ḥukma lā yuʿāraḌa. It is said that when He said to him “dwell and your wife in the Garden and eat thereof with ease” [He] was alluding to the fact that it is natural for created beings to dwell comfortably with other created beings and to want to seek worldly things. Alone Adam عليه السلام had nothing but good and freedom from trial but when one like him his spouse came the fangs of sedition anyāb al-fitna appeared and the door to tribulation bāb al-miḥna was opened. When [Adam] dwelled together with Eve he followed her in what she suggested to eat and what happened happened. Indeed it is said: There is an ancient disease in the children of Adam which is the youthful passion of one human being for another. Whenever anything is prohibited to the son of Adam his yearning to approach it increases. Everything was permitted to Adam عليه السلام in the gar- den-only one tree was prohibited. In what has been transmitted about this there is no mention of his hand reaching out toward anything that was permitted to him. [Rather] he lost his patience and plunged into what was prohibited to him-this is the attribute of created beings.
