التفسير الإسماعيليّ للخطيئة الأولى في كتاب (أساس التأويل) للقاضي النعمان

In his seminal work Asās al-taʾwīl (Foundation of Interpretation), the prominent Ismāʿīlī preacher (dāʿī) Abū Ḥanīfa ibn Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥayyūn al-Tamīmī al-Maghribī, better known as al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), offers dozens of unique interpretations of Qurʾānic stories of prophets. The common denominator of all these interpretations is their archetypical reading of the history of the prophets, as symbolizing and anticipating the history of Ismāʿīlism. One of these fascinating accounts concerns the story of Adam and Eve and their sin in eating from the forbidden “tree of knowledge,” resulting in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. As with other Biblical-Qurʾānic accounts, the story is read as a journey in search of divine knowledge – an arduous quest in which there are both injunctions to be followed in order to achieve such knowledge and obstacles in the path of the seeker. The article offers a detailed analysis of al-Nuʿmān’s interpretation, accompanied by a comparison with the famous Talmudic account of “the four sages who entered an orchard” "אַרְבָּעָּה שֶׁנִּכְנְסוּ לְפַרְדֵּס") ), which illustrates the danger of seeking the divine mysteries without due preparation for the task. (from the article)