When the Creator—Majestic is His power and Great is His will—willed the habitation of this Abode with the world of human clay, He said: {When your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I am going to create a human being from clay. ❁ So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down to him in prostration." ❁ So the angels prostrated—all of them together, ❁ Except Iblis; he was arrogant and became of the disbelievers}.1
And the words of the Mighty and Sublime: {When your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" He said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know"}.2
All of this indicates the correctness of what we related: that before this human world there were nations with this attribute, as the angels said. They [the angels] are the High World, the five thousand people of the Luminous Ranks.
When Adam was created—as the people of the outward related—as a human from clay, and He breathed into him of His spirit, He commanded the angels to prostrate to him, as the Exalted said: {And when We said to the angels, "Prostrate before Adam"; so they prostrated, except for Iblis. He refused and was arrogant and became of the disbelievers}.3
The "Ancient" one mentioned here in our view—the people of Reality—is the Name. Those angels who were commanded to prostrate are the High World and those who follow them of the seven human ranks, the Small World numbering one hundred and nineteen thousand personages.