Bismillah, walhamdulilah.

In the Qur’an, the only place where the story of Aadam alayhi salaam occurs twice consecutively back-to-back is suratul Israa (17) and suratul Kahf (18). The story of Aadam alayhi salaam is mentioned in other surahs such as A’raaf and Baqarah, but here in these two surahs, his story is mentioned in the middle of the surahs right after one another.

The story in both surahs begins similarly:

وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلَّا إِبْلِيسَ

“And when We said to the angels prostrate to Aadam, then they all did so with the exception of Iblees” (17:61, 18:50)

What follows in the rest of the ayaat differ. What we find in suratul Israa (which is also known as Surah Bani Isra’eel) are the words of Iblees. Iblees says:

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Bismillah, walhamdulillah

In Arabic, there are means in which you can empower a statement and also weaken it in degrees. Allah ta’ala says:

وَلَئِن مَّسَّتْهُمْ نَفْحَةٌ مِّنْ عَذَابِ رَبِّكَ لَيَقُولُنَّ يَا وَيْلَنَا إِنَّا كُنَّا ظَالِمِينَ

“And if a breath of the Torment of your Rabb touches them, they will surely cry: “Woe unto us! Indeed we have been wrongdoers.” (21:46)

The ayah begins with:

لَئِن – “if“, a sentence discussing reality is greater than one discussing a possibility–so this sentence starts of weak, because it is referring to if this would occur, it has not happened yet.

مَّسَّتْهُمْ - “it touched them“, this is a fi’l* . Grammatically when a statement begins with an ism* it is more powerful than when it comes with a fi’l. This word is already past tense= something that has already occurred once. Present tense and future tense continues, but past test is weaker, therefore less.

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