hearts of these hath God graven the Faith, and with His own Spirit hath He strengthened them.' ¹

This Spirit is in no way represented as a metaphor to explain the working of the divine power and wisdom. The Spirit has essential being; and at times is associated with the angels, who are also God's messengers and ministers; but it is always clearly distinguished from them. 'Therein descend the angels and the spirit (better, the Spirit) by permission of their Lord for every matter.' ² 'On the day whereon the Spirit and the Angels shall be ranged in order, they shall not speak save he whom the God of Mercy shall permit, and who shall say that which is right.' ³ ' . . . the master of those ascents, By which the angels and the spirit (better, the Spirit) ascend to Him in a day, whose length is fifty thousand years.' ⁴

The orthodox Muhammadan belief is that by 'the Spirit', in such passages as these, is meant a high and lofty creature, far surpassing the angels in dignity and being, and it is held by some that the Spirit is the nearest of all creatures to God Himself. But there is nothing in the Qur'an to show clearly that Muhammad believed 'the Spirit' to be a creature at all. His references to it are so indefinite that it is impossible to maintain that he had any precise idea or belief on the subject of its nature and being. In this connexion it is worth while quoting the following words of Zamakhshari: '(It is related) on the authority of Abu Buraida,

that the prophet passed away without knowing what the Spirit is.' ¹ When Muhammad was asked to say plainly what he meant by 'the Spirit', he refused to give a clear answer, and replied: '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.' ² We shall come back to this passage later.

3. In some passages Muhammad calls this Spirit, when acting as the medium of inspiration, Gabriel; but this cannot be said to explain anything, for we have no reason to believe that in using this name he meant to express anything more precise than when he employed the words 'the Spirit'. Both expressions are equally indefinite on his lips. In any case, he did not in any way attempt by the use of the name 'Gabriel' to define or even qualify the nature of 'the Spirit'. 'It is probable that Muhammad's ideas of the Spirit were at first indefinite, but that the two expressions, Gabriel and the Holy Spirit, became ultimately synonymous.' ³

It would appear that he had heard from Jewish sources of 'the Angel of the Lord' as a means of the manifestation of the divine power and will, and that in his mind this Angel was associated, though indistinctly, with Gabriel, of whom he had also heard, and that he then carried over the association to 'the Spirit'.

All that we are entitled to say, arguing from the language of the Qur'an itself, is, that Muhammad