So, I have been reading a book by Mark Robert Anderson called “The Qur’an in Context: A Christian Exploration”. I am a person of Christian background who is no longer Christian and who had been studying Islam for a while now. I have been thinking about converting but I want to do thorough research - of academics, of my own heart, etc.

This book is part of my academic study. I thought it would be a good idea because the author tries to remain neutral while giving a very detailed compare and contrast between Islam and Christianity.

While reading, I got to a chapter that was talking about the fall of Man from the garden of Eden, and the author was explaining that in the Qur’an, it says that when Adam and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android.eve">Eve</a> were kicked out of the garden, he fell to earth. This implies that the location of Eden, by the Muslim perspective, is not located on earth and that people did not have their start on earth. The author called it specifically “extraterrestrial”.

I thought this was really curious!

Now, I asked a Saudi guy I know about his take on this, and he confirmed that Muslims believe that Eden was located in the 7th tier of the sky. He mentioned that there were two main theories about the clay in relation to the creation of humans, and the one he believes is that God took clay from earth - from Asian lands, from African lands, from Caucasian lands, etc. - and that is how variations in physical racial features occurred.

My question is, as a Muslim (convert/long-term/new/born-and-raised) what is your take on this? Does anyone have good resources for the theories that my Saudi acquaintance mentioned? How do you interpret the Qur’antic Creation story?

(My source was a compare/contrast between Christianity and Islam, but you don’t need to have a Christian background to answer.)