only saith unto it, Be, and 'it is.' In the latter passage the verse runs, 'All things have we created (bound) by a fixed decree: and our command is no more than a single (word), like the twinkling of an eye.' The language of these verses is largely figurative; for whatever they mean we cannot understand them to say that God spoke as with a human voice. Zamakhshari, commenting on Sura vii, 171, quoted later, states that figurative language is common in the Qur'an, and one of his illustrations of figurative language in the book is this very expression, 'Be, and it is'.

A study of the verses will soon show that they do not, in any sense, imply that God does not employ means in creation. The idea that they both convey is that in the act of creation there is nothing difficult to God, however wonderful it may appear to man. All that is necessary for the carrying out of God's will in regard to anything which He creates, is that He says the word (that is, purpose it in His own mind) and immediately His purpose begins to be accomplished, and the work is carried out to its ultimate completion by virtue and in consequence of this single command.

The creation of Adam, then, consists first, in God's forming from the dust of the ground a body in that likeness which we call human. But the body thus formed and fashioned is not yet man; it is only something in the form of man. The first step has been taken; a second is still necessary before it can be said that man has been created. What the nature of this second step must be, may be seen from studying those passages in which the story of the asserted miraculous creation of a bird is related by Jesus. These passages are two. In the first of them we

read, ' for I will make (literally create) before you, of clay, as it were the figure of a bird; then I will breathe thereon, and it shall become a bird, by the permission of God' [Suratu Ali 'Imran (iii) 43]. The second passage runs thus, 'and when thou didst create of clay as it were the figure of a bird, by my permission, and didst breathe thereon, and it became a bird, by my permission' [Suratu'l-Ma'ida (v) 110]. The creation of a living being is represented as consisting of two parts. There is first prepared a body, and then there is given to this body life, by breathing on it.

Now, this is but an imitation, as it were, of the method whereby God is believed to have created man. When He created man He proceeded similarly. He formed and fashioned the body of Adam from the dry clay, and then He breathed into the body of His own Spirit, and man, an embodied soul, came into being. 'And (remember) when thy Lord said unto the angels, Verily I am about to create man, of dried clay, of black mud, wrought into shape; when therefore I shall have completely formed him, and shall have breathed of My Spirit into him, do ye fall down and worship him' [Suratu'l-Hijr (xv) 26. See also Suratu'l-A'raf (vii) 10] .

These verses clearly represent the creation of man as a process. Not merely are there two separate phases in the operation, but the formation of the body itself is a process — 'and shall have completely formed him' — and the bestowal of a soul is not to take place until the body is completely formed and shall have become a fit dwelling-place for that spirit which God from the beginning purposed to inbreathe into it.

We cannot, of course, claim that, in using such