This is the beginning of the Ayahs about the creation of Adam, peace be upon him.  Allah the Highest informed the Angels of His intention to place a viceroy on Earth.  A Viceroy is a representative, a person who should carry out the commands and will of his Lord. 

The Angels response to this was a question; no one should assume that it was a criticism, for the angels can not criticize Allah the Highest, but they enquired.  Why did they enquire? 

Because the Angels are some of Allah’s creation, they do not know what Allah the Highest has hidden in the future, but only what happens and whatever they are allowed to know. 

This enquiry however raises two more questions:

1-    Either the Angels were allowed to know that mankind was going to cause mischief and shed blood on Earth?

2-    Or that they reasoned this out from prior experience.  Meaning that they have seen this happening in another part of Allah’s Kingdom, such as other planets or different world?

We do not know.

Allah’s answer to them was to remind them that the knowledge of the future and what is hidden is only His.  Allah the Highest, said in Ayah El-Korsi the greatest Ayah in the Quran “HE KNOWS WHAT IS BEFORE THEM AND WHAT IS BEHIND THEM, WHILE THEY KNOW NONE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE EXCEPT WHAT HE WILLS”.  (S: 2 A: 255)

This is Allah’s rules with all including the closest Angels.

This Ayah should make us very weary of those who claim that they know the future and what is hidden for Allah the Highest allows such privilege to very few only.  Going to others to seek knowledge about the future or what is hidden is weakness in one’s faith.  Allah’s messenger, prayer and peace upon him said: “The fortune tellers lie even if what they say turned out to be right”.