Were Men Real­ly 60 Cubits Tall ?

The Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies have recent­ly turned their atten­tion to a hadith which states that the height of Adam(P) was 60 cubits (= 90 feet) tall and have charged this hadith as a sci­en­tif­ic error”. The hadith in ques­tion is from Sahih al-Bukhari and is record­ed as follows :

Nar­rat­ed Abu Huraira : The Prophet said, Allah cre­at­ed Adam, mak­ing him 60 cubits tall. When He cre­at­ed him, He said to him, Go and greet that group of angels, and lis­ten to their reply, for it will be your greet­ing (salu­ta­tion) and the greet­ing (salu­ta­tions of your off­spring.” So, Adam said (to the angels), As-Sala­mu Alaikum (i.e. Peace be upon you). The angels said, As-sala­mu Alai­ka wa Rah­matu-l-lahi” (i.e. Peace and Allah’s Mer­cy be upon you). Thus the angels added to Adam’s salu­ta­tion the expres­sion, Wa Rah­matu-l-lahi,’ Any per­son who will enter Par­adise will resem­ble Adam (in appear­ance and fig­ure). Peo­ple have been decreas­ing in stature since Adam’s cre­ation.1

Now regard­ing the above hadith, the mat­ter is very sim­ple even for peo­ple with a diminu­tive men­tal com­pe­ten­cy. The per­ti­nent parts of this hadith are :

    kha­laq-Allâhû Aadam wa-tûluhû sit­tû­na thirâ‘(an)…”
    (Allah cre­at­ed Adam and his height was 60 cubits…)

This is talk­ing about the height of Adam(P) and all humans in Par­adise and not in this world. This can be imme­di­ate­ly adduced from the fol­low­ing por­tion of the hadith :

    “…fa kul­lu ma[n]-yadkhul al-jan­natî alâ sûratî Aadama fa-lam yazal al-khalqû yan­qusû hatta‑l Aan.“2
    (So every­one who enters Par­adise (will be) upon the like­ness of Adam, for they have not ceased from being decreased in stature even until now)

When Adam(P) descend­ed from Par­adise to the world, he was giv­en a world­ly decrease in stature, of which mankind is still upon to this day. Thus, this hadith is clear­ly stat­ing that when humans enter Par­adise again, they will return to that heav­en­ly tall stature.

To avoid any fur­ther con­fu­sion, observe the very next hadith which pre­cedes the above :

Nar­rat­ed Abu Hurayrah : The Mes­sen­ger of Allah said, The first group of peo­ple who will enter Par­adise will resem­ble the moon in the night of its fullness…All of them will be upon a sin­gle sem­blance, upon the resem­blance of their father Adam, 60 cubits (tall) in the sky.“3

So that there is no room for doubt, the Ara­bic for “…upon the resem­blance of their father Adam, 60 cubits (tall) into the sky” is alâ khalqi rajul wâhid,‘alâ sûratî abîhim aadama sit­tû­na thirâ‘a fis-samâ’ ”.

Hence we have suc­cess­ful­ly refut­ed the 20+ pages of mis­sion­ary’s incon­se­quen­tial dia­tribe, as we can all see now that the ref­er­ence to 60 cubits tall” is with regard to the stature of all mankind when they are in Par­adise.4

And only God knows best !Endmark

Cite this arti­cle as : Shi­b­li Zaman & Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi, Were Men Real­ly 60 Cubits Tall ?,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Octo­ber 14, 2005, last accessed March 19, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​h​a​d​i​t​h​/​e​x​e​g​e​s​i​s​/​60​-​c​u​b​i​t​s​-​t​a​ll/
  1. Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:543[]
  2. ibid.[]
  3. Sahih al-Bukhari, 4:544[]
  4. See also Ibn Hajar’s exe­ge­sis to Sahih al-Bukhari to see how this is the way Mus­lims in the past have inter­pret­ed this hadith, as he places this sub­ject in the con­text of Bab Sif­fat al-Jan­nah” (“The Chap­ter of the Char­ac­ter­is­tics in Par­adise”).[]

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8 responses to “Were Men Real­ly 60 Cubits Tall ?”

  1. Jeffkl Avatar
    Jeffkl

    Eme­diong- Athe­ists and Chris­tians are the most igno­rant peo­ple on earth. Your claim is based on a sin­gle Mus­lim with that view­point. But you are the los­er because you deny Allah who is your Cre­ator and you wor­ship false deities.

  2. Ahmad Avatar
    Ahmad

    You are dis­tort­ing the mean­ing of the hadith to suit your whims.

  3. Hamza Avatar
    Hamza

    @Leeam
    of course as you do not under­stand ara­bic you would miss this, but the actu­al trans­la­tion of that phrase is Peo­ple have been lack­ing in height…”

    this is a far bet­ter inter­pre­ta­tion, and means that since Adam’s fall from heav­en, mankind has not achieved that tall stature since

  4. Leeam Avatar
    Leeam

    Peo­ple have been decreas­ing in stature since Adam’s creation.”

    The author con­ve­nient­ly ignores the sen­tence above. So typ­i­cal of Mus­lim who will twist and turn try­ing to defend the indefensible.

  5. N Avatar
    N

    Hi, I have tried search­ing for the details of Ibn Hajar’s exe­ge­sis (foot­note 4), how­ev­er, I could not find it on the inter­net. If pos­si­ble, is there a source or link for me to locate the exe­ge­sis ? Thank you.

  6. Emediong Avatar
    Emediong

    Mus­lim are with­out a doubt the largest col­lec­tion of dumb peo­ple to have ever exist­ed. I came across a Mus­lim say in con­fi­dence that Dinosaurs nev­er tru­ly went extinct but rather got small as the earth mass increased indi­cat­ing that dinosaurs of old are now the mod­ern day lizards, crocs and geck­os. A well edu­cat­ed human said this in full con­fi­dence, proud with head held high. When will this stu­pid­i­ty stop lol i grow tired of it. Com­mon sense is not com­mon with you lot

  7. Lily Avatar
    Lily

    Sor­ry to both­er you again. I was going to say, not the chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies I am encoun­ter­ing. We total­ly believe they were all giants. But then I noticed the date of your arti­cle and real­ized, the mud­fos­sils rev­e­la­tions are rel­a­tive­ly young and yes, I could see there are peo­ple, every where, regard­less of every dif­fer­ence, will nev­er see the truth right in front of them.

  8. Lily Avatar
    Lily

    Hel­lo, I would like to share with you the work of Roger spurr, founder of mud fos­sils. Through sci­ence and your own eyes, he is show­ing peo­ple, for those with eyes to see, the Giants and the floods tru­ly hap­pened and the evi­dence is all around us. A lot of peo­ple are return­ing to the words in all the ancient texts because the truth of our his­to­ry, present and future is in all of them. Go and watch some mud­fos­sil video’s, and I hope you will under­stand. Peace be with you.

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