Prophet Muhammad informed us that there were ten generations
between Prophets Adam and Noah.We know that this was a very large period of time, as Noah himself lived over
a century, and people before lived even longer.
In those years, between Adam and Noah there were
generations of people that remembered the laws taught by Adam and worshipped
God correctly. The years passed and the people forgot; at times, the righteous
men amongst them reminded the people of their obligations to God. As time
continued to move on, the righteous men began to die, and Satan came whispering
to the people who had looked up to them, putting thoughts into their minds in
his sly, cunning way.
Satan inspired the good people to make statues of the
righteous men. In this way, Satan said, they would remember the righteous
people and thus remember to worship God. The good people built statues in
their meeting places and their homes, and Satan left them alone until everyone
had forgotten the reason the statues existed. Many years later, the devious
Satan appeared amongst the people again, this time suggesting that they worship
the idols directly.
An authentic narration of Prophet Muhammad sums up the beginning
of idolatry in the following way. Ibn Abbass, a close companion of the Prophet
Muhammad said:
“The names (of the idols) formerly belonged to some
pious men of the people of Noah, and when they died Satan inspired their people
to prepare and place idols at the places where they used to sit, and to call
those idols by their names. The people did so, but the idols were not
worshipped till those people (who initiated them) had died and the origin of
the idols had become obscure, whereupon people began worshipping them.” (Saheeh
Al-Bukhari)
