The story of Adam and Eve is common to both the Bible and the Quran. According to the Quranic account, God created Adam and his wife, Eve and settled the pair in Paradise. Where was this Paradise? The Bible is specific on this point: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
This was the beginning of the social life of man. God gave both Adam and Eve a basic direction:
God said, ‘O Adam! Settle, you and your wife, in Paradise and eat freely from it anywhere you may wish. Yet do not approach this tree lest you become wrongdoers.’
The ‘forbidden tree’, in one sense, was a symbol of social taboos. Breaking these taboos means involving oneself in social wrongdoing, as mentioned in the above Quranic verse.
When God created Adam and Eve, it was not just creating a pair, rather it was creating the first unit of society. Adam and Eve were not created to live simply as a pair forever, but were destined to start a generation; and form a society complete in every respect, subsequently paving the way for the building of a civilization.
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