Fatir (xxxv) 12. See Suras xvi 4; xxv 56; liii 46-7; lxxv 37-9; lvi 58-9]. 'O men fear your Lord who hath created you out of one man, and out of him created his wife and from them two hath multiplied many men and women' [Suratu'n-Nisa' (iv) 1]. 'And it shall not be lawful for them to conceal that which God hath created in their wombs, if they believe in God and the last day' [Suratu'l-Baqara (ii) 228]. From these and similar passages it is clear that Muhammad regarded the Creator as taking an active part in the production of the descendants of Adam. Instead, however, of direct creation from the dust, He now employs the physical powers of the existing members of the race in the creation of their descendants. Yet these latter are no less the creation of God, than was their first parent.

In this second or secondary method of creation, God has not done away with the direct creative act whereby He Himself gives to the individual that which still makes him akin to Himself. Even into those who are thus 'created' by ordinary generation, God breathes of His divine Spirit, and not till this is done are they truly men. '(It is He) who hath made everything which He hath created exceeding good; and first created man of clay, and afterwards made his posterity of an extract of despicable water; and then formed him (into proper shape) and breathed of His Spirit into him; and hath given you (the senses of) hearing and seeing, and hearts (to understand)' [Suratu's-Sajda (xxxii) 6]. With this passage may be compared a couple of verses in Suratu'l-Mu'minun (xxiii) 12-14, the last clause of which, 'then we produced the same by another creation', is probably to be taken as referring to the bestowal of the

soul, whereby that which was not yet fully man, became man in deed and in truth (see Sale's Qur'an, p. 257 note).

Here again, then, we see that in 'creation' God employs means. The human parents are instruments in the hand of God, yet not mere machines. On the corporeal side there is again solidarity, all are descended from Adam; but on the spiritual side solidarity does not exist. The passage quoted above (xxxii 6) is clear on this point. Muhammad regarded the individual soul as being inbreathed by God, and as being thus His direct creation, using the word in its primary meaning and not in any secondary sense. When this creation of the soul takes place is not clear; but apparently it is at or about the time of birth. Indeed, the common expression among the Arabs fails to distinguish clearly between birth and creation. The greater is, as it were, overcome of the less; and to be created has become the synonym of to be born. An Arab boy, at least in the Yemen, would as naturally speak of his birthday as the day on which he was created as a boy in other lands would speak of his as the day on which he was born. Indeed, he does not distinguish between birth and creation.

The Qur'an, too, regards natural generation as being as much an act of God as is the direct bestowal by Him of the soul, and we thus see that according to the Qur'an, when God creates man He does so by means, yet all in virtue of the one word 'Be'. This act of creation — the accomplishment of the will of God in the matter of the production of the individual members of the human race — takes place in time and space by and through those means which He has seen fit in His wisdom to employ;