An Alternative Vision of the “Fall”

Within the Abrahamic traditions there are multiple interpretations of the story of the fall from Paradise. The Ismai’ili tradition (one of the branches of Islam) expresses an alternative vision of the meaning of the images of this loss in a purely esoteric way. Adam was said to be created from clay, and symbolically this signifies knowledge that is external, exoteric, opaque, or material. Angels, on the other hand, were created in a state of subtle knowledge—esoteric, internal and spiritual that did not depend on initiatory instruction through time, exempted from struggle and the observance of practice. Adam, therefore, had to come to spiritual knowledge through the mediation of the external—the knowledge of symbols—a more difficult way.

Lucifer, one of the twelve angels (symbolized by his ribs) who had been chosen to surround Adam and help him, refused to bow down before Adam as one of his servants or helpmates, as God had commanded, because he knew that Adam was made from a “lesser material” than the Angels. In the struggle, he betrayed the divine trust, became Satan, was cast out of heaven, and cut off from his vital link to Adam. Eve was given to Adam to compensate for the loss of Lucifer—taken from his side (his ribs) as the new helpmate.

To Eve. therefore, was given a transmission of the inner knowledge possessed by Lucifer—the esoteric wisdom, which she now bears. Something highly significant emerges in the spiritual world of Ismai’ilism—the esoteric is now seen to be essentially Feminine, and the Feminine-within is the esoteric Self, hidden deeply inside man, but which is expressed more outwardly in women. It is this masculine-feminine couple, this exoteric-esoteric bond, this Adam-Eve then, that God establishes in the garden of Paradise, and which must now be made real in an earthly paradise as the most sublime manifestation of Gods creation. In this world, if we are to avoid catastrophe, both aspects are required and must be maintained in a delicate balance.