His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿He said, 'O Adam, inform them of their names.' So when he informed them of their names, He said, 'Did I not tell you that I know the unseen of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you were concealing.'﴾ ﴿And when We said to the angels, 'Prostrate to Adam,' they prostrated except for Iblis; he refused and was arrogant and was of the disbelievers.﴾ 'Inform them' means: tell them. It is a verb that takes two objects, one of them with a preposition. The preposition may sometimes be omitted. You say: 'I was informed about Zayd.' Sibawayh said: Its meaning is 'I was informed about Zayd.' The pronoun in 'inform them' refers to the angels by consensus. The pronoun in 'their names' is disputed, according to the difference in the names that Allah taught Adam. Abu Ali said: All of them read 'inform them' with a hamzah and the letter 'h' is pronounced with a dammah, except what was narrated from Ibn Amir: 'inform him' with a hamzah and the letter 'h' is pronounced with a kasrah. Likewise, some of the Meccans narrated from Ibn Kathir, and that is following the kasrah of the letter 'h' to the kasrah of the letter 'b.' If the consonant is stopped, then his stopping is not considered. Abu Amr al-Dani said: And Al-Hasan and Al-A'raj read 'inform them' without a hamzah. Ibn Jinni said: Al-Hasan read 'inform them' in the form of (give them), and it has been narrated from him 'inform them' without a hamzah. Abu Amr said: Similar has been narrated from Ibn Kathir through Al-Qawwas. Abu al-Fath said: As for Al-Hasan's reading 'inform them' like (give them), it is based on substituting the hamzah with a ya, as you say 'I informed' like 'I gave.' This is weak in language, because it is a substitution and not a lightening, and substitution in our view is not permissible except in the necessity of poetry. Some scholars said: In His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿So when he informed them﴾ there is a prophecy for Adam, peace be upon him, as Allah commanded him to inform the angels of what they did not have of the knowledge of Allah, exalted and majestic is He. It is permissible to open the 'y' in 'Indeed I' and to keep it silent. Al-Kisai said: I saw the Arabs when they encountered the 'y' with a hamzah, they open it. Abu Ali said: Abu Amr used to open the 'y' of the addition when the letter before it is kasrah at the open and the kasrah when it is connected to a name or a verb, unless the letter is long, for its opening becomes heavy, like His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿And do not tempt me﴾ [At-Tawbah: 49], and His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿So remember Me, I will remember you﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 152]. And that which is light: (Indeed I see), and (I do not run except upon Allah) and similar to it. And His saying, exalted and majestic is He: ﴿I know the unseen of the heavens and the earth﴾ means what is hidden from you, because Allah, exalted and majestic is He, does not have anything hidden from Him; everything is known to Him. And 'what' is in the accusative position with 'I know.' Al-Mahdawi said: It is permissible that His saying 'I know' is a noun meaning superiority in knowledge, so 'what' would be in the genitive position by addition. The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: If the first is assumed to be a noun, then there must be an implied verb that would make 'unseen' accusative, its estimation being: 'Indeed I know of all, I know the unseen,' and its being in both positions as a present tense verb is shorter and more eloquent.

(p-176) And the commentators differed in the saying of Allah, the Most High: ﴿What you reveal and what you conceal﴾. A group said: This is in the general sense of knowing their secrets, their outward appearances, and their inner selves altogether. Makkī reported that the intended meaning of His saying: ﴿What you reveal﴾ is their saying: ﴿Will You place in it﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 30]. Al-Mahdawī reported that ﴿What you reveal﴾ is their saying: "Let our Lord create what He wills; He will not create one more knowledgeable than us or more honorable to Him." So this is what they revealed in what they said. Al-Zahrāwī said: What they revealed is their prostration to Adam. And they differed regarding the concealed. Ibn Abbas and Ibn Mas'ūd said: The intended meaning is what Iblīs concealed in himself of arrogance and disbelief. And the saying

And there was a difference regarding the state of prostration to Adam. Ibn Abbas said: Allah commanded them to prostrate to Adam, and the worship in that is for Allah. Ali ibn Abi Talib, Ibn Mas'ud, and Ibn Abbas said: It was merely a prostration of greeting, like the prostration of the parents of Yusuf, peace be upon him, not a prostration of worship. Al-Shabi said: Adam was like the qiblah. And the meaning of "to Adam" is to Adam.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: In all of these views, there is honor for Adam, peace be upon him. Al-Naqqash narrated from Muqatil that Allah only commanded the angels to prostrate to Adam before He created him. He said: And the Qur'an refutes this saying. And some people said: The prostration of the angels was twice, and the consensus refutes this.

And His saying, the Exalted, "Except Iblis," is established as a connected exception, because he is among the angels according to the opinion of the majority, and this is the apparent meaning of the verse. He was a guardian and a king over the heavens of this world and the earth. His name is Azazil, as stated by Ibn Abbas. Ibn Zayd and Al-Hasan said: He is the father of the jinn, just as Adam is the father of mankind, and he was never a king. This has also been narrated similarly from Ibn Abbas, who said: His name is Al-Harith. And Shahr ibn Hawshab said: He was among the jinn who were on the earth, and the angels fought them, and they captured him when he was small, and he worshipped and was addressed with them.

Al-Tabari narrated this from Ibn Mas'ud, and the exception in these sayings is disconnected. Some of the proponents of this saying argued that Allah, the Exalted, described the angels: "They do not disobey Allah in what He commands them and they do what they are commanded" [At-Tahrim: 6]. Al-Tabari favored the saying of those who said that Iblis was among the angels. He said: There is nothing in his creation from fire, nor in the composition of desire and procreation in him when He was angry with him that would prevent him from being among the angels. And His saying, the Exalted, "He was among the jinn and he disobeyed the command of his Lord" [Al-Kahf: 50] can be interpreted as he acted like them and thus was among them in this, or that the angels may be called jinn due to their concealment. Allah, the Exalted, said: "And they made between Him and the jinn a lineage" [As-Saffat: 158]. And Al-A'sha mentioned in the account of Sulayman, peace be upon him.

And He made nine of the jinn of the angels stand before him, working without reward.

Or it could be that their lineage to the jinn is like being attributed to Basra, as he was a guardian over it.

And Iblis does not decline, because it is a foreign name that is defined. Al-Zajjaj said: Its weight is Fi'ilil. And Ibn Abbas, Al-Suddi, Abu Ubaidah, and others said: It is derived from Ablasa when he was distanced from good, and its weight in this case is If'il. And this group did not decline it due to its oddity, and they treated it like Ishaq from As'hqahu Allah, and Ayyub from Aaba Ya'ub, like Qayyum from Qama Yaqum. And since this did not decline and has a weight of derivation, likewise this did not decline even if its derivation was directed, due to its scarcity and oddity. And from this meaning is the saying of the poet Al-Ajjaj:

O companion, do you recognize a well-established mark? He said: Yes, I recognize it and Iblis.

That is: he changed and distanced himself from construction and companionship with it. And similar is the saying of another:

In faces is a yellowness and despair.

And from it is His saying, the Exalted: "So when they see them, they will be in despair" [Al-An'am: 44], meaning they are hopeless of good, distanced from it in what they see.

And "he refused" means he abstained from doing what he was commanded. And "he was arrogant" means he entered into arrogance. The refusal is prior to the arrogance in their appearance upon him, and arrogance and disdain are prior in his belief. Ibn al-Qasim narrated from Malik that he said: It has reached me that the first sin was envy, arrogance, and greed. Iblis envied Adam, became arrogant, and Adam was greedy in eating from a tree he was forbidden to approach.

Al-Mahdawi narrated from a group that the meaning of "and he was among the disbelievers" is that he became one of the disbelievers. Ibn Fawrk said: This is an error that the principles refute. And a group said: There had previously been among the jinn one who disbelieved, so Allah likened him to them and made him one of them for what he did in disbelief, doing as they did. Al-Tabari mentioned from Abu al-Aliya that he used to say: "and he was among the disbelievers" means: among the disobedient.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And that sin is a sin of disbelief, because it stemmed from a corrupt belief.

It has been narrated that Allah, the Exalted, created a creation and commanded them to prostrate to Adam, but they disobeyed, so He burned them with fire. Then He created others and commanded them to do so, but they disobeyed, so He burned them. Then He created the angels and commanded them to do so, and they prostrated.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And the chain of narration in this is not reliable. The majority of the interpreters said: The meaning of "and he was among the disbelievers" is in the knowledge of Allah, the Exalted, that he would disbelieve, because the disbeliever is a reality, and the believer is a reality, which Allah has known of him in terms of compliance.

And Al-Tabari went to say that Allah intended by the story of Iblis to reprimand his counterparts among the children of Adam, who are the Jews who disbelieved in Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, while knowing of his prophethood, and with the prior blessings of Allah upon them and their forefathers.

There is a disagreement on whether Iblis disbelieved out of ignorance or out of obstinacy. There are two opinions among the people of the Sunnah, and there is no disagreement that he was knowledgeable of Allah before his disbelief. So whoever said he disbelieved out of ignorance said: He was deprived of knowledge at the time of his disbelief. And whoever said he disbelieved out of obstinacy said: He disbelieved while having his knowledge, and disbelief out of obstinacy with the retention of knowledge is unlikely, except that it is permissible to me and not impossible with Allah's abandonment of whomever He wills.

And there is no disagreement that Allah, the Exalted, expelled Iblis at the time of his disbelief and distanced him from Paradise. After expelling him, He said to Adam: "Dwell."