32 THE QUR'ANIC DOCTRINE OF GOD

in their garments, doth He not know alike what they conceal and what they show? For He knoweth the very inmost of their breast.' 1

'Know they not that God knoweth their secrets and their private talk, and that God knoweth the secret things?' 2 'He knoweth the very secrets of the breast.' 3

All that is to be known is known by God, 'and ye shall be brought before Him who knoweth alike the Hidden and the Manifest, and He will tell you of all your works.' 4

The language used in the Qur'an may not be, to our mind or to our way of thinking, so high and noble as that of the Old Testament when it speaks of God's omniscience, but there can be no shadow of doubt that the conception that Muhammad had of the knowledge of God, and of His seeing all things, was exactly the same as that of the Hebrew writers.

His piercing eye sees not merely material objects but penetrates to the subtle workings of the human mind, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. 'Know that God cometh in between a man and his own heart.' 5 Whether this verse is to be understood as the commentators understand it, that God overrules the very thoughts of man, and thus comes in between a man and his heart, or not, the fact remains that it claims for God a knowledge of the human heart which is exactly

1 Suratu Hud (xi) 5-7.           2 Suratu't-Tauba (ix) 79.
3 Suratu'l-Anfal (viii) 45; cf. xxxi. 22; lxiv. 4.
4 Suratu't-Tauba (ix) 106.      5 Suratu'l-Anfal (viii) 24.
THE CHARACTER AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 33

the same as that claimed for Him by the psalmist when he says, 'Thou understandest my thought afar off.' 1

This knowledge of God is not acquired. It was and is and ever remains an attribute of the Almighty. God knows because He is God, the one and only Creator. 'We created man: and we know what his soul whispereth to him, and We are closer to him than his neckvein.' 2 'What! shall He not know who hath created? for He is the Subtil, 3 the Cognisant.' 4

4. The divine omniscience is not a mere acquaintance with facts. It is a full and complete understanding and comprehending of all things. We therefore find the Qur'an, in very many passages, speaking of the divine Wisdom, or describing God as 'the Wise'.

The word 'Wisdom' is clearly another of those words which Muhammad borrowed from the Jews. He had apparently heard of 'the Wisdom', and seems to have had a truer conception of what was meant thereby than he had of some other expressions which he took over bodily from the former revelations. 'The Wisdom of the Hebrew sages is practical moral inspiration — that by which the good man moulds his conduct.' 5

In several passages Muhammad speaks of this Wisdom having been revealed by God. 'And He will

1 Psalm cxxxix. 2.       2 Suratu'l-Qaf (l) 15.
3 The primary meaning of the Arabic root is to draw near; hence the above signification, in the sense of God's presence as interpenetrating all things: hence also the other sense of benign, as in Sura [lxxxiii.] xlii. 18. RODWELL, The Koran, p. 143 note.
4 Suratu'l-Mulk (lxvii) 14.
5 A. R. GORDON, The Poets of the Old Testament, p. 295.