Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #210 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 13 Apr 2021 › Segment 12 of 50
Are the stories in the Quran true but not historical, like the story of Adam?
muftis koran quraan al-quran as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greetingQuran stories as true but not historical? Adam, the tree and the cognitive revolution
Play from 47:50
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 47:50The player starts at 47:50, where the answer begins.
This segment47:50 to 50:26 · 2 min 36 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says Adam was the father of humans with modern cognition, and that the tree, which the Quran never calls a fruit or apple, may have been a psychedelic plant that sparked the cognitive revolution.
In more detail
A viewer asks what he thinks of Quranic stories being true but not historical, such as the nature of evil being demonstrated through Adam and the contrast between one who does wrong and rationalises and one who repents. Mufti Abu Layth says he has videos on this and that evolution and the story of Adam were on his list of hard questions. He says his view on the fruit developed over the years: he first thought it might be metaphorical, and now holds, in line with what he calls the stoned ape theory [?], that modern human consciousness was edging forward and that Adam was the father of humans with today's cognition. He says what triggered it may have been a psychedelic plant, and that the Quran speaks only of a tree or bush, not a fruit or an apple as in the Bible, and that this triggered the whole cognitive revolution.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhat do you think of those stories in the Quran being simultaneously true but not historical, for example the nature of evil being demonstrated, the contrast of Adam, one committing a wrong and rationalising and the other repenting?
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says he holds that Adam was the father of humans with modern cognition and that the forbidden tree may have been a psychedelic plant that triggered the cognitive revolution, the Quran mentioning a tree rather than a fruit.
“adam alaihi salam i believe would have been the father of you know of of humans today with this modern cognitive explosion and having consciousness the way we do”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine47:50 to 50:26 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
but so much of the work has been done for people who are now you know coming to this arena of islam and you know they want to understand it and they can build on it you know i mean i'm not saying um you know they they may be able to take those examples and build on them you know improve them so right let's um abu safura you're doing it you're too oh right you know
salaam mufti what do you think of those stories in the quran being simultaneously true but not historical eg the nature of evil being demonstrated the contrast of adam at least one committing of wrong and rationalizing and the other repenting all right well i have got videos on these and i and these two are questions which i answered one of the things at the time was evolution i answered that the story of adam was also one on my list which i did answer and the fruit was a question which i admit over years i developed in my view on that so first i thought it may have been
metaphorical then i do actually feel i know it's i've got a whole clip on it explaining in line with what psychologists call the stone date theory that human beings may have been kind of modern humans would have been the consciousness would have been edging forward and forward as in they would have been having some developments but not quite the way we are today with this kind of cognition and adam alaihi salam i believe would have been the father of you know of of humans today with this
modern cognitive explosion and having consciousness the way we do and i feel that what may have triggered it was a psychedelic um whether you know whether you want to say fruit or plant or or whatever it was and and in the quran it doesn't mention it was a fruit by the way it just mentions reference to a kind of bush or tree and this is what it's being referred to and it's unlike the the bible there's no such thing as an apple or stuff like this so i do feel that the you know that's what i eventually kind of gravitated towards
Paragraphs overlapping 47:50 to 50:26. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-04-13-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/12/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, April 13). Are the stories in the Quran true but not historical, like the story of Adam? [Video, segment 2021-04-13-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/12/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Are the stories in the Quran true but not historical, like the story of Adam?" Video, segment 2021-04-13-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 13, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/12/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-04-13-S12, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Are the stories in the Quran true but not historical, like the story of Adam?}}, year = {2021}, month = {4}, date = {2021-04-13}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/12/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/8xuhmcz2n3u/s/12/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-04-13-S12, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.