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The First Covenant

SHAFAQNA – Allah says in the Qur’an:-

“And when thy Lord drew forth their posterity from the loins of the sons of Adam, and took them to witness against themselves (saying), ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They answered, ‘Yes, we do bear witness,’ (This was done) lest you should say, at the Day of Resurrection, Verily we were negligent as to this (matter), or lest you should say, Verily, our fathers were indeed joining other gods with our Lord, and we were but their seed after them: wilt thou destroy us for the doings of vain men? Thus make We our , signs clear: that haply they may return to God.”( Qur’an, 7:172-174 ).

This covenant was taken, according to the traditions of Islam, before the creation of Adam (A). The Sunni traditionalist, Daylami, narrates in his book, Firdaus-ul-Akhbar, Chapter 14, that the Messenger of Allah (S) said:
“If the people were to realize when it was that ‘Ali was named The Leader of the Faithful, they would not deny his superiority. He was named ‘Leader of the Faithful’ when Adam was between soul and body (i.e., his creation was not completed). Allah has said: ‘And when thy Lord drew forth their posterity from the loins of the sons of Adam, and took them to witness against themselves (saying), ‘Am I not your Lord?” Then the angels said, ‘Yes’; and Allah said, ‘I am your Lord, and Muhammad is your Prophet, and ‘Ali is your Leader’.”

The two narratives mentioned in this and the previous chapters, throw light on some mysteries of human behaviour.

‘Love at the first sight’ is not just a poetic figure of speech. Neither is hate at first sight. All of us have experienced these inexplicable feelings at one time or the other. Some times we meet a person for the first time and instantly feel a sort of attraction towards him. And in other cases, an instant dislike occurs within our hearts.

Many people try to explain this phenomenon by saying that our bodies emit electrical currents, accordingly, if someone else’s electrical waves are in harmony with ours, we are attracted to him; and if on the other hand, the waves are not in harmony, we instantly dislike that person. Be it as it may. But the tradition of Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (A) gives us the basic reason of this mystery; that theory of electrical currents may explain the secondary cause, but the primary cause is that attraction or repulsion of the spiritual world.

Another phenomenon is the readiness of the human soul to follow the path of truth, if left to itself. This may easily be understood if we look at even the primitive tribes and find out their beliefs about the Creator and the life -hereafter. We will surely find them believing in a Supreme Being, and as explained in the previous pages, in the life after death. This instinctive belief comes from the First Covenant, which has been mentioned in this chapter.

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