Covenant by Allah with the Souls of Humans

In his groundbreaking work on the legal structure of the Qur’an, Ahmer Bilal Soofi devotes special attention to the primordial covenant between Allah and the souls of humankind, described in Surah Al-A‘raf (7:172). He interprets this moment as the foundational legal agreement that binds every human being to divine recognition and moral accountability. By framing it as a pre-life contract with God, he highlights how this single verse establishes the universal basis for faith, obligation, and the ethical claims of the Qur’an upon every soul.

1. Introduction

In the Qur’an, the idea of divine covenants – solemn pledges or agreements ordained by God – is a recurring theme. Throughout the scripture, Allah makes covenants with prophets and communities as a way to guide them and hold them accountable. For example, Allah reminded the Children of Israel of their covenant:

“O Children of Israel, remember My favour which I have bestowed upon you and fulfill My covenant [upon you] that I will fulfill your covenant [from Me]”.
(Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:40)

In another instance, the Qur’an describes a covenant with all the prophets, wherein Allah said:

“Whatever I give you of the Scripture and wisdom, then afterward there comes to you a messenger confirming what is with you, you [must] believe in him and support him.”
(Surah Aal-E-Imran, 3:81)

All the prophets agreed and testified to this pact. These examples illustrate that through the Qur’anic lens, covenants are foundational to the relationship between God and humankind – they are promises that carry deep responsibility.

Amidst these various pledges, one covenant stands out as truly universal and primordial: the covenant between Allah and all human souls. This unique event, which took place before our earthly existence, is explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an. It establishes the direct relationship between each human soul and its Creator even before birth. This article will explore this covenant in detail – what the Qur’an says about it, and how it shapes key Islamic concepts of human accountability, free will, faith, and the moral structure of life.

2. The Primordial Covenant with Humanity

The Qur’an depicts a profound moment when Allah drew forth all the souls of the children of Adam – every human being destined to live – and made them bear witness to His lordship. Surah Al-A‘raf describes this event:

“And when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their backs, their descendants, and made them bear witness regarding themselves: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ Lest you say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were oblivious of this.’
(Surah Al-A‘raf, 7:172)

In this verse, Allah asks all souls, “Am I not your Lord?” (Arabic: “Alastu bi Rabbikum”), and all humans affirm, “Balaa, shahidnaa”, meaning “Yes, indeed, we testify.” By doing so, every soul acknowledged Allah’s lordship (rububiyyah) before entering the worldly life. The Qur’an emphasizes the purpose of this testimony: so that on the Day of Judgment people cannot plead ignorance of the truth. Immediately after, the Qur’an continues:

“Or lest you say, ‘It was our forefathers who associated others with Allah before us, and we were only their descendants after them. Will You then destroy us for what those falsifiers did?’”
(Surah Al-A‘raf 7:173)

This means no one can claim that their idolatry or disbelief was merely a product of ancestral tradition or a lack of knowledge. Through this covenant, Allah pre-emptively nullified any excuse a person might have for not recognizing and worshipping the one true God. Every human soul has already affirmed God’s sovereignty, so any departure from that pledge later is a deliberate choice, not a born ignorance.

Notably, this primordial covenant (often referred to by scholars as the “Covenant of Alast,” from Allah’s question “Alastu bi Rabbikum?”) establishes the theological principle that the seed of tawḥīd (belief in One God) is implanted in every human soul. After mentioning this event, the Qur’an says:

“We thus detail the revelations so that they may return [to the right path].”
(Surah Al-A‘raf, 7:174)

In other words, Allah reminds humanity of this original covenant through His revelations, inviting people to “return” to their innate recognition of Him.

3. Human Accountability and the Primordial Covenant

One of the most significant implications of this covenant is human accountability. By testifying to Allah’s lordship, human beings have no justification for shirk (associating partners with God) or atheism. The verse explicitly states the rationale:

Lest you say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were unaware of this.’”
(Surah Al-A‘raf, 7:172)

In Islamic doctrine, Allah is infinitely just, and He does not hold people accountable without providing guidance or the innate capacity to recognize truth. The primordial covenant is a testament that guidance is inbuilt. Every soul has acknowledged Allah as the Lord, which is a cornerstone of accountability.

In addition to this inner testimony, Allah further ensured accountability by sending prophets and revelations throughout human history as external reminders. The Qur’an explains that messengers were sent to all nations “as bearers of good news and warners, so that mankind, after the coming of the messengers, should have no plea against Allah”. In other words, people cannot say “we did not know how to fulfill our covenant” because the prophets clarified what Allah expects from us. No excuse remains – neither the excuse of ignorance (because of the soul’s pre-life testimony) nor the excuse of insufficient guidance (because of the chain of prophets).

Each person, therefore, is accountable for whether they uphold the pledge made before birth. If one lives in accordance with recognizing Allah as the sole Lord, by worshipping Him alone and following His commands, they are honouring that ancient promise. If they violate it through disbelief or polytheism, they are breaking the promise made to Allah Himself. The Qur’an severely reproaches those who break the covenants made with Allah after affirming them. Thus, the primordial covenant imbues life with a serious trust: humans carry a moral responsibility that they agreed to even before they were born, and they will be questioned about it on the Last Day.

4. Free Will and the “Trust” of Responsibility

The existence of a binding covenant might raise questions about human free will. If all souls already acknowledged Allah, is our earthly belief pre-determined? In Islam, the primordial covenant does not negate free will – rather, it establishes an inner truth that humans ought to live by, while still allowing them the freedom to accept or reject it in their earthly life. Our souls recognize Allah naturally, but we are not forced by that recognition. Instead, we are tested through free will to establish who remains true to that recognition.

The Qur’an sheds light on the unique responsibility borne by humans in another verse that is often linked to the idea of free choice and moral burden. It says:

“Indeed, We offered the Trust (al-amānah) to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they declined to bear it and were fearful of it. But humanity assumed it, for indeed he was unjust and ignorant [of its consequences].”
(Surah Al-Ahzab, 33:72)

According to the Qur’anic commentators, this “Trust” (amānah) refers to the heavy responsibility of free will, moral agency, and obedience to Allah’s commands. All other creatures recoiled from this burden, but the humans accepted it.

By accepting this Trust, humans demonstrated a willingness to choose freely – and thus bear the consequences of choice. The primordial covenant ties into this concept: our souls agreed that Allah is our Lord, yet Allah endowed us with free will in this life to either live by that truth or turn away from it. This free will is the axis of our test on earth. We are “unjust and ignorant” in the sense that we often fail to do justice to this great responsibility and ignorantly make choices that go against our own eternal welfare. Nonetheless, free will is a gift and a test; it means the commitment we made is meaningful. Choosing to fulfill the covenant – by faith and good deeds – leads to reward, and choosing to violate it leads to blame.

It is important to note that Allah’s question “Am I not your Lord?” and our soul’s answer “Yes, indeed” do not force anyone into belief. However, they establish the ideal state of the soul. The soul’s pure nature (Arabic: fitrah) is oriented toward affirming God. What remains is whether the individual, in this worldly life with all its temptations and veils, will exercise their free will to align with that fitrah or to suppress and ignore it. The Qur’an states that each person ultimately chooses their path:

“Among them were those whom Allah guided, and among them were those upon whom error was deservedly decreed.”
(Surah An-Nahl 16:36)

Some choose guidance whereas others choose misguidance, despite all souls having started from the same position of truth. Thus, the covenant of Al-Ast enhances the significance of free will: it is a Trust we volunteered for, and we must use it to uphold our pledge.

5. Faith and Innate Knowledge of God

This primordial covenant also informs the Islamic concept of faith (īmān) as something innate to human nature. Since all humans testified to Allah’s lordship, the awareness of God is considered built-in and deeply embedded in the human soul. The Qur’an hints at an innate disposition toward faith in verse 30:30:

“So set your face to the religion, inclining to truth, following the nature made by Allah upon which He has fashioned mankind. There is no altering the creation of Allah. That is the right religion, but most people do not know.”
(Surah Ar-Rum, 30:30)

The Arabic word used for “nature” here is fitrah, often interpreted as the natural inclination toward God and goodness. According to this verse, every person is created with a pure primordial nature that recognizes the truth of the one God, and this creation will not change – though people may obscure or ignore it.

We can understand the Covenant of Al-Ast as the moment when the human fitrah was established. From an Islamic perspective, to have faith in Allah is in fact to return to one’s own deepest nature – to remember and reaffirm the testimony our soul already gave. The Qur’an in Surah Luqmān observes that even idolaters, when asked who created the heavens and earth, instinctively answer, “Allah!”.

“And if you asked them, ‘Who created the heavens and the earth?’ they would surely say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘[All] praise is [due] to Allah ‘; but most of them do not know.”
(Surah Luqman, 31:25)

 

Despite their outward polytheism, an inner voice still recognized the true Creator. This reflects the idea that an imprint of that primordial covenant remains in each soul, even if layers of culture or ego cover it up.

Another indication of this inner knowledge is the human conscience and inclination to seek the divine. The Qur’an says about the human soul:

“And [by] the soul and He who proportioned it, and inspired it with [discernment of] its wickedness and its righteousness.”
(Surah Ash-Shams, 91:7–8)

Allah has imbued each soul with an understanding of right and wrong, serving as a moral compass pointing toward what God expects. True faith, thereof, is not an arbitrary or alien concept; it resonates with the fitrah and the covenant inscribed on it. When someone embraces faith in One God, from the Qur’anic perspective, they are not adopting a new identity but rather embracing their original identity as a servant of Allah.

In practical terms, this means the message of Islam is meant to remind people of what they already know to be true. The Qur’an calls itself “dhikr” (reminder). Prophets do not introduce the idea of God’s oneness as something novel; they call people to remember their Lord. This is beautifully encapsulated by the fact that the Shahādah (the Islamic declaration of faith) – “There is no god but Allah” – is essentially a reassertion of the pledge made in the primordial covenant. It is a conscious, willing restatement of the truth in this world that our souls have already affirmed. Thus, faith is deeply tied to memory of the covenant and commitment to it.

6. The Moral Structure of Life in Light of the Covenant

Finally, the covenant between Allah and human souls provides a framework for the moral structure of life in Islam. If we ask, “Why are we here on earth?”, the Qur’anic answer connects back to that initial pledge. Allah created us and sent us into this world to fulfill the covenant through worship and righteous living. In Surah Adh-Dhāriyāt, Allah states:

“I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me.”
(Surah Adh-Dhariyat, 51:56)

Worshipping Allah is the natural outcome of recognizing Him as the Lord; it is the practical manifestation of honouring the covenant. The entirety of Islamic ethics and law (Sharīʿah) can be seen as the terms of the covenant – the guidance that comes as to how humans should live in order to stay true to the covenant of Al-Ast.

Because all humans are bound by this pledge, there is a fundamental moral universality in Islam’s outlook: everyone is called to worship the same God and adhere to basic virtues. The Qur’an says:

“We certainly sent into every nation a messenger, [saying], ‘Worship Allah and avoid false gods.’”
(Surah An-Nahl, 16:36)

The core moral message has been consistent for all people, reminding them of the same covenant. Worship (which includes not just rituals but any act done in obedience to God) is how one lives la ilaha illa’Llah (“no god except Allah”) in daily life. Conversely, wrongdoing and sin are essentially a betrayal of the covenant – a form of forgetting or ignoring that Allah is one’s Lord and Sustainer.

The Qur’an often describes disbelievers as ghāfilūn (heedless, oblivious). They are heedless of the Day of Judgement and their duties flowing from it. In contrast, the faithful are described as those who remember Allah standing, sitting, and on their sides and who remain conscious of Him. In essence, moral living in Islam is covenant-conscious living. A person who remembers that he testified to Allah’s lordship will feel accountable for every action. Such a person will strive to fulfill Allah’s commands (prayer, charity, honesty, justice, etc.) as a matter of loyalty to the truth they carry in their soul.

Additionally, the Qur’an teaches that Allah has given humans an inner moral faculty to help live by the covenant. As mentioned, He “inspired the soul with its wickedness and its righteousness” – a reference to the innate conscience. Immediately followed by: “Successful is the one who purifies it, and ruined is the one who corrupts it.” This means the person who nurtures their God-given moral insight and lives a pure life will prosper, whereas the one who buries or twists their inner awareness will fail. This is again where the covenant’s imprint becomes clear: to “purify the soul” is to stay true to that original promise we made before we were born, whereas to let the soul be “corrupted” is to break the covenant and allow worldly desires to take over our beings.

In summary, the moral structure of life in the Qur’an is firmly rooted in the covenant with Allah. All duties and ethics flow from the central duty to remember Allah as the Lord. Life is viewed as a journey of keeping one’s promise to God. Our choices every day – whether to tell the truth or lie, to show compassion or selfishness, to pray or neglect prayer – are seen as expressions of whether we honour our pledge or not. And on the Day of Judgment, the Qur’an tells us, each person will face the consequences with full knowledge of their own actions:

“Man will be a witness against himself, even if he presents his excuses”
(Surah Al-Qiyamah, 75:14–15)

No excuse will be of use, because, as we have seen, none of us can claim we lacked the essential understanding of our duty. We testified already, and that testimony is recorded in the very fabric of our being.

7. Conclusion

The Qur’anic concept of the covenant between Allah and human souls (highlighted in Surah Al-A‘raf 7:172) is a powerful narrative that conveys humanity’s innate knowledge of God, our moral responsibilities, and the seriousness of the choices we make in life. It tells us that knowing and worshipping God is not a matter of arbitrary chance or culture, but rather the fulfillment of a deeply ingrained truth. Every person, according to the Qur’an, is born with the light of that covenant in their soul – a ready awareness that Allah alone is the Lord and worthy of worship.

This primordial covenant has far-reaching implications on how the Qur’an expects us to live: We are accountable to uphold our pledge, we possess free will as a trust through which our loyalty is tested, we have an innate disposition of faith that can guide us back to God, and we are given a clear moral framework to follow as an extension of that fundamental agreement. The covenant thus ties together the essential Qur’anic themes of creation, purpose, guidance, and judgment into one unifying idea: that the relationship between God and humanity is, at its core, based on a promise.

Understanding this concept enriches one’s reading of the Qur’an. Verses about remembering God, about the signs in nature, about the warnings of prophets, all become reminders of the original question “Am I not your Lord?” and the answer that we all gave. It calls on every reader to reflect: Are we being true to that answer in our daily lives? The Qur’an’s message is ultimately one of re-discovering our true selves: the selves that stood before Allah and recognized Him. As it was in the beginning, so it is in the end: Allah is our Lord, and success, salvation, and the fullness of life lie in honouring the Covenant with Him.

Author: Muneeba Nadeem