Khaleefah = Free-will, Thinking being that breed, generation after generation.
“Free Will” = Able to do whatever it like whether obediently or disobediently.
“Thinking” = The ability to reason (a process happening in the mind), eg. to judge between right, wrong, good, evil, to justify, etc.
“Breeding” = having children, the children grew and they in turn having children again.
(1) Animals = “Free Will” , “Not Thinking”, “Breeding” creatures
(2) Angels = “Limited Free Will”, “Thinking”, “Not Breeding” creatures. They only acted obediently.
(3) Jinns and Mankind = “Free Will”, “Thinking”, “Breeding" creatures
From the above, both Jinn and mankind fit into this basic meaning of Khaleefah, having “Free Will”, “Thinking” & “Breeding".
Khaleefah in the context of the story of Adam (a.s) is Mankind. Adam (a.s) was given KNOWLEDGE that the others do not have in order TO MANAGE Earth.
All the Angels (including Iblis) got the Official Announcement that Allah will create a new creature called a "Khaleefah" and his name is Adam (a.s) meant to populate and manage earth. The Angels began to ask Allah on the purpose of creating another creature to dwell on earth where the Jinn was currently living on it. This shows that the Angels are intelligent beings having a certain amount of free will, i.e. the ability to ask and reason. They are not merely robots following codes in a Computer Program. A robot arm in a car factory assembling a car will not question the Technician in the assembly line. The Robot Arm has no free will whatsoever.
There are many narrations on this topic of the Angels having a certain amount of free will. What is meant by the Angels having a limited amount of free will?
Firstly they have ZERO will to disobey Allah. They have no will in desiring anything than the Will of Allah. Zero personal desires. However they have the ability to reason, to think and to ask.
Other than the above narrative of them asking Allah on why create humans, there was another narrative based on a hadith of a person (human) who had killed 99 people. He wanted to repent and asked a Monk on whether he is allowed to repent. The Monk said that there would be no way he could repent. He killed the monk. Hence he has now killed 100 people). He found another religious person and asked the same question. This person advised him to go to a town full of good people. He went on his way with the intention to repent. On the way he died.
Two Angels came to take his soul, either for punishment or for a blessed after life. Both of them are at opposing ends to take his soul.
Both of them tried to reason out which angel supposed to take this soul. These are their opposing reasons.
He was supposed to be punished as he had killed a 100 innocent souls.
He was to be saved as he was on his way to repentance.
It was a stalemate so both of them asked Allah on what to do. They were told to measure the distance between the place of his last murder and the place where he wanted to repent. The distance was almost the same between the two places, however it turned out that he was just a little bit nearer to the place of repentance. Hence the Angel of Blessings took his soul as Allah had forgave him. The doors of repentance are always open.
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The ingredients:
"Ma'" (water)
"Ardh" (top surface of the earth)
"Turab" (dust)"
"Teen" (clay),
"Teen Lazib" (sticky clay),
"sulsulatin min Teen" (extract of clay)
"Salsal"(sounding clay)
"Hama'"(black, stinking mud)
[al-Furqaan 25:54]
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ مِنَ ٱلْمَآءِ بَشَرًا
“And it is He Who has created man from water"
[Sunan Abi Dawud 4693]
إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَلَقَ آدَمَ مِنْ قَبْضَةٍ قَبَضَهَا مِنْ جَمِيعِ الأَرْضِ
"Allah created Adam from a handful which he took from the whole of the earth"
[Quran 30:20]
وَمِنْ ءَايَـٰتِهِۦٓ أَنْ خَلَقَكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ
"One of His signs is that He created you from "Turab" (dust)"
[Quran 6:2]
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكُم مِّن طِينٍ
"He is the One Who created you from "Teen" (clay)"
[Quran 37:11]
إِنَّا خَلَقْنَـٰهُم مِّن طِينٍ لَّازِبٍ
"Indeed, We created them from a "Teen Lazib" (sticky clay)
[Quran 23:12]
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِن سُلَـٰلَةٍۢ مِّن طِينٍ
"And indeed, We created humankind from an "sulsulatin min Teen (extract of clay)"
[Quran 15:26]
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِن صَلْصَـٰلٍۢ مِّنْ حَمَإٍۢ مَّسْنُونٍ
"Indeed, We created man from "Salsal"(sounding clay) moulded from "Hama'"(black mud)."
[Quran 55:14]
خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مِن صَلْصَـٰلٍ كَٱلْفَخَّارِ
"He created humankind from "Salsal"(sounding clay) "Kal-fakhkhar" (like pottery),"
Summarized from the Musnad of Abu Ya'la.
Soil (Turab), taken from the earth, mixed with water it becomes mud/clay (Teen). Then it is left to stand draining out the water content and it becomes sticky clay (Teen Lazib). It is again left for some time and it begins to smell. The colour becomes darker - black, smooth clay (Hama'). It was then moulded into the form of Adam. His soulless body was left to dry, and it became what is known in the Quran as sounding clay (Salsal). Adam was moulded from something akin to potter's clay (Fakhkhar) that if you knock on it, it will produce sound. Then it was left for a while before the Ruh was blown into it.
[Musnad Ahmad]
"Indeed, Allah created Ādam from a handful of soil gathered from all parts of the earth. Therefore, the children of Ādam came out accordingly: some red, some white, some black, and some in between; some soft, some tough; some good, and some evil."
Scholars said that this is to indicate the different colours and type of Earth in Adam’s DNA which is passed down to his progeny. You will find upon the earth or soil, the colour of any skin colour of human. There is no person who is green or blue or bright red.
When we know that all of us came from the same person, then there should not be any racists behavior towards another person. Both our lineage will merge somewhere in the past timeline.
The stench of human corpse is worse than the stench of animals. It is decomposing back to its raw materials. Knowing this will not make any human to be arrogant as he is actual just dirt.
Jinns are intelligent beings with free will. Then why need to create another intelligent beings (i.e Humans) who also have free will ?
[Quran 51:56]
وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنْسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ
"I have NOT created Jinn and Human, EXCEPT to worship Me."
From the ayah, the purpose of creation is the same for both Jinn and Human.
Angels worship Allah because they have No Choice. Jinn and Human worship Allah based on Choice. They can choose not to worship Allah or disregarding, ignoring Ayaat from the Creator and Master. If they choose to ignore what Allah said, Allah too can ignore them in the hereafter. We desperately need Allah's attention on Judgement day.
However, the nature of Jinn is not the same as Human. Differences in abilities and capabilities.
Mostly Jinn are stronger than Human (read ayaat on IFRIT with Sulaiman a.s).
They have a longer life span than Human.
They can see us but we cannot see them. Most likely they are not in our 3-Dimensional world (Please find out the concept of 1D, 2D, 3D, 4D).
With those differences, hence the Tests that Allah put upon them may not be the same as Human.
Therefore, it does not matter from what material an intelligent creature is created.
The core of the matter is how much these creatures obeyed Allah.
Allah gave humans the capability to expand knowledge which the Jinn may not have the capacity to do. Refer to Surah Al-Baqarah Ayah 33 for the tafsir.