I cannot see that these words, as they came from the lips of Muhammad, have any other meaning than that given above, though they have been used by Muhammadan theologians, from the time they came to understand the Christian doctrine of the Trinity better than Muhammad himself did, as a 'proof text ' against that doctrine, and have been accepted, for this reason, by Christians, as being intended by Muhammad himself to state formally his denial of the truth of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

When, as we have seen, Muhammad believed that the Trinity consisted of God (Allah), the man Jesus, and his mother, he cannot have been referring to anything else when he spoke the words which now form the hundred and twelfth Sura of the Qur'an, (Suratu'l-Ikhlas) or those which are found in the hundred and tenth verse of the second Sura (Suratu'l-Baqara).

The Qur'an has no direct teaching on the Nature of God, and the mode of the Divine Existence, and we must look at the indirect teaching of the book on this point to find what, if any, presuppositions as to the divine Nature lie at the base of Muhammad's teachings concerning God.

In speaking of God and His dealings with mankind, especially in those passages which speak of Jesus, the Son of Mary, Muhammad had to fall back on such expressions as 'The Spirit,' 'The Holy Spirit,' 'His Word', which are employed in most indefinite, and, at times, irreconcilable ways.

We shall, therefore, now take up those passages in which these and similar expressions occur to see what they imply

1. God, when He created man, breathed into him 'of His Spirit'.¹ This is the first use of the expression which we shall consider. What exactly Muhammad meant by it, it is difficult to say. The expression is evidently to be traced to the Jewish Scriptures, and like other expressions taken by Muhammad from the Jews or the Christians was employed by him without there being attached to it any clear, definite, or precise meaning. Yet there it stands in the Qur'an, and unless it is to be passed by as unintelligible, we must try to see what it implies.

The frequent and easy comment of the expositors that the words 'the Spirit', 'the Holy Spirit', etc., refer to Gabriel, cannot, of course, be made here. The nearest approaches to reasonable explanation are those given by Baidawi and Zamakhshari on xxxii. 8.

Baidawi says: 'He joined him (Adam) to Himself as an honour, and as a mark that he was a wonderful creation, and that he has a dignity which has some kind of relation (analogy) to the divine Majesty; and on this account, he who knows himself knows his Lord."

Zamakhshari writes on the same verse: 'And he showed by the addition of the Spirit to his being, that he was a wonderful creation, whose real being (kunhuhu) no one knows but He. (The meaning is) similar to His words, "And they will ask thee of the Spirit. Say The Spirit (proceedeth) at my Lord's command: but of knowledge only a little to you is given." It is as if He