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Bismillahi ar-rahmani ar-rahim

Peace and blessings be upon you, brothers and sisters. I hope that this year’s Ramadan was a blessing for you and your families, and that you all enjoyed last month’s festival of Eid al-Fitr (Rojar Eid, Şeker Bayrami etc.). These special days are over, but the blessing of Allah’s unchangeable word in the Scriptures stays with us. Last month, we left with a question: What is the promised libāsu-l-taqwā, the covering of righteousness? There is no answer in the Holy Qur’an. Let us now look for help in the first book of Allah’s revelation to humankind, the Tawrat, given to Musa (aws).

Genesis 3,11-21

The Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten fruit from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “It’s the fault of the woman you put here with me. She gave me some fruit from the tree. And I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me. That’s why I ate the fruit.”

So the Lord God spoke to the serpent. He said, “Because you have done this, …I am putting a curse on you… I will make you and the woman hate each other. Your children and her children will be enemies. Her son will crush your head and you will bite his heel.”

The Lord God said to the woman, “…You will be in great pain when you have children. You will long for your husband and he will rule over you.”

The Lord God said to Adam, “You listened to your wife’s suggestion. You ate fruit from the tree I warned you about. I said, ‘You must not eat its fruit.’ So I am putting a curse on the ground because of what you did. All the days of your life… you will have to work hard and sweat a lot to produce the food you eat. You were made out of the ground. You will return to it when you die. You are dust, and you will return to dust.”

The Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife to wear.

Lying and accusing others, when asked to take responsibility for doing wrong, is:

1. a perfectly normal behavior for a Muslim
2. a necessity, when my bad deeds are exposed
3. a shameful sign that I am not walking on the Straight Path

After Allah confronted Adam and Hawa, he told them that:

1. they are lost forever because of their transgression, and they have no hope
2. He is Almighty, and so He will forgive them, and act as if nothing had happened
3. they must carry the just consequence of their transgression

Did Allah offer any mercy after pronouncing his just punishment? We read in the last ayah:

The Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife to wear.

Instead of the useless leaves, Allah covered their shame with animal skins. Do you understand what it meant? This was the first qurban. This was the first death. Allah had warned Adam that if he does not obey, he will die. When he disobeyed, Allah did not kill Adam. Instead, He killed an innocent animal. That way, Allah covered our parents’ shame. Could this be the covering of righteousness, promised to Adam by Allah, after his sin, in surah Al A’rāf?