Adam knew them.
When He brought before them what He brought of His creation that the angels did not know, “He said, ‘Tell Me the names of these’” [al-Baqara 2:31], through which you glorify and hallow Me. “They said, ‘We have no knowledge.’” He said to Adam, “Tell them their names.” “When he told them their names” [al-Baqara 2:33], they knew that God has names they had not known, through which these creatures He created glorify Him. Adam knew them and glorified God through them.
It is as Adam said to the angels when they circumambulated the House with him, “What were you saying?” The angels said, “In our circumambulation before you, we used to say, ‘Glory be to God, praise be to God, there is no god but God, and God is greater.’” Adam said to them, “I add for you, ‘There is no power and no strength except through God.’” God gave this to him from a treasure beneath the Throne; the angels had not known it.
Had the interpreter intended by “even the bowl and little bowl” the divine name directed toward the small and the great, through which the small glorifies Him in its smallness as the great does not in its greatness, he would have been correct. But he intended the expression “bowl and little bowl.” There is no nobility in this, for it returns to convention: in each tongue they have a name composed of letters unlike the other name. What is intended is only what supplies the benefit corresponding to the angels’ boast over the human being that they glorify and hallow. God showed them Adam’s nobility in the very respect of their claim. It is what we mentioned, nothing else.
Nothing among creatures is nobler than the angel,
