What they knew was what had already been created, that was the animal life. And it was evolving to a state where it was fit to receive Allah’s word. But all the previous record of that animal life was bloodshed and disorder. That is what they observed. But what they did not know, and Allah knew was this, that when Allah wanted to make a khalifa, he would be against the bloodshed and he would rectify the habits of those who are for disorder. So the angels knew only the half that was past. And they made their inferences based on the past of life on earth. Allah had in view his spiritual creation, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w. and all his prophets, you know, under the same title of course, but subordinate to him.
So what the angels said was completely off the mark. It was not a pre-knowledge. It was an after-knowledge with wrong inferences. What Allah had in view, as I have said, was to rectify that state of affairs which was full of bloodshed, right was might and there was survival of the fittest at each other’s cost, struggle for existence. The whole earth was full of bleeding and trampling of, as if each other’s rights. So Allah said, no I am going to rectify all these things.
