Huzoor (rh): So the question is, was Hazrat Adam the first man? The answer in short to that is no. He was not the first man. There were men before him, and which were the people whom he addressed as a prophet? The second part of your question. The answer is that his people where he was born, his own tribe, that tribe which had developed to an extent that it was in the eyes, in the sight of Allah, capable of receiving a sharia, a law from God. They were in fact the most developed people of that age, and they had reached a point of sophistication and of culture where they were capable of receiving Allah’s message and ultimately paying due heed to it, though in the beginning they didn’t, but ultimately I mean. So that is the institution of prophethood which is mentioned. So the first man capable of receiving a revelation from Allah, that was Adam, but not the first man. The first man was born many hundred thousand years ago. So far they have discovered the bodies of men known to have been buried long long ago, and they have been preserved in fact now. So the most famous among them is Neanderthal men, and then China, Chinese men, so some place, Kenton or some other place. So they have been naming them according to the place where they were discovered. And I don’t remember exactly, but I think it is a few hundred thousand years ago that the first man, that they have the evidence that at least a man was present in their age. Beyond that they don’t know yet.
