In several histories it is mentioned that when Adam hastened to eat of the fruit from the prohibited tree, the Almighty punished him with ten misfortunes:
1. He reproved him saying: ‘Have I not forbidden that tree to both of you, and said to you that Satan is your evident enemy?’
2. By putting him to shame among the inhabitants of paradise, in consequence of the exposure of his nudity.
3. By changing his outward freshness. One of the followers states that before Adam’s transgression his skin was polished like the nails, but after sinning it all disappeared, and only a little remained on the tips of his fingers to augment his remorse every time he looked at them.
4. By surnaming him ‘after propinquity,’* and expelling him from the mansions of paradise.
5. By afflicting him during two hundred, and, according to others, during three hundred years with separation from Himself [i.e. from Allah].
Distich: The heart experienced many trials in this world,
But found none harder than separation from the Friend [i.e. Allah].
6. By causing discord between Adam and Eve, who instigated him to eat of the [forbidden] fruit, according to the words: ‘We threw among them enmity and hatred till the day of the resurrection,’ and this quality took effect on their progeny.
7. By surnaming him a sinner, and by publishing the report of ‘Adam rebelled against his Lord and went astray’ among the inhabitants of the world. It is related of Ebrahim, the friend [of God], that he prayed to the Lord of Glory to explain to him the mystery of these words, whereon the announcement came: ‘For I have known that the opposition of a lover towards a lover is a terrible affair.’
8. By appointing Satan and his progeny, who are the true enemies of mankind, to reign over Adam and his offspring, and to stretch forth their arms of oppression according to the verse, ‘And draw upon them thy horse and foot.’
9. By making the base world an abode of trial to the sons of Adam, and afflicting him and his seed with the troubles thereof.
10. By punishing him with various fatigues, and causing him to drink the unpalatable beverage of this inconstant world, which after all betrays man.
Verses: The world, according to its name, is leaping;* Intellect has called it vanity.
Happy is he who, from the racecourse of spirits,
Has not descended into the arena of bodies.