u/TheCaliphate_AS

CONCLUSION

Debates on the conflict between scripture and science, with particular focus on hadith, have increased at an unprecedented rate in the modern

age. Premodern scholars were by no means unaware of this conflict. They dealt with similar debates and, in the process, provided a coherent meth-

odology for analogous situations. This methodology involves a critical appraisal of both sides of the conflict along a spectrum of epistemic value,

followed by an evaluation based on a three-tiered model—harmonization (jamʿ), prioritization (tarjīḥ), and suspension of judgment (tawaqquf)—to

determine the best course of action.

The hadith describing Prophet Adam’s height as sixty cubits and humankind’s subsequent decrease in height has been placed in the spotlight due to scientific and archaeological concerns

that a literal reading of it poses. In this study, we examined how scholars

from different periods in Islamic history have proposed to deal with this

hadith through the three-tiered model of conflict resolution.

First, contemporary scholars like al-Muʿallimī and Kashmīrī maintain

that the hadith could easily be describing a metaphysical phenomenon:

Adam’s height was sixty cubits only in Paradise, not during his stay on

earth. This is the most balanced interpretation on the subject. Reconciling

this interpretation with the last part of the hadith (i.e., a gradual decrease

in human height) has been a bone of contention, with some proposing

an alternative reading of the relevant words and others suggesting that a

narrator insertion is at play.

Second, based on a holistic analysis of all the chains and versions of

the hadith, we learn that the majority of transmitters do not narrate the

passages concerning the height of Adam and his progeny. With a decrease

in the epistemic value of these passages due to the conflicting routes of

transmission, a case can be made to give credence to the scientific and

archaeological concerns while accepting versions of the hadith that do

108 | The Height of Prophet Adam

not include the description of height and subsequent gradual decrease.

Alternatively, as Jawnpūrī contends, we can opt for a hybrid approach:

namely, prioritize the empirical objections by dismissing only the last

part of the hadith while maintaining that Adam’s height was sixty cubits

in Paradise. These proposals may come across as novel. However, this

interdisciplinary perspective is not without merit, though it requires

further exploration.

Third, Ibn Ḥajar—an exceptionally qualified scholar—had no qualms

about suspending judgment regarding a gradual decrease in height due

to his inability to answer an archaeological conundrum in accepting it at

face value. Understandably, many have taken his cue. Although Ibn Ḥajar

suspended judgment only on the last part of the hadith (concerning a

gradual decrease in human height), given the underlying motivation for his

noncommittal stance, we can reasonably extend his reservation to the issue

of Adam’s height—or other ostensibly problematic hadith for that matter.

While researching this topic, I could not help but notice the extensive

commentary on determining the antecedent of the pronoun in the words

“God created Adam in His/his image” found in some versions of the hadith,

with little debate on the present topic (although a minority of voices did

participate in such a debate). Ḥamūd al-Tuwayjirī (d. 1992) wrote an entire

monograph on the question of whether Adam was created in God’s form.

Centuries earlier, the Mālikī jurist Aḥmad al-Fayyūmī (d. 1101 AH) wrote a treatise on the stages of Adam’s creation up until his demise.

Al-Fayyūmī dedicates only a few lines to the archaeological contention on the hadith,

in which he briefly quotes Ibn Ḥajar’s comments mentioned above. The situation today is shiſting, whereby the limelight has fallen on the question

of Adam’s height without serious controversy on the pronoun debate (His vs. his). This observation highlights the influence that shiſting paradigms

and new discoveries have on scholarly debates and commentary.

Students of Islamic intellectual history may notice that premodern

discussions on reason and revelation centered around issues that may not

immediately resonate with modern concerns (e.g., the divine attributes).

Sharif El-Tobgui, however, observes in reference to Ibn Taymiyya that

the underlying problematic remains, in significant ways, very much

the same. Whether it is the issue not precisely of reason and revelation

but, say, of science and revelation or, for instance, the tension between

sacralized and secularized visions of law and government, which

has been a particularly troubling issue for Muslims in the modern

period, the root of all these issues can be traced to the deeper lying

tensions with which Ibn Taymiyya grappled when confronting the

delicate question of the relationship between reason and revelation

in his own day.

An examination of scholarly efforts to resolve the tension surrounding

the hadith on Adam’s height yields results that go beyond this specific

issue. It serves as an excellent case study of the hermeneutic techniques

that both classical and modern scholars have applied when they found

themselves at the crossroads of science and scripture.