are often regarded as relating to the doctrine of Predestination.

7. In view of this want of clearness and definiteness we must consider in greater detail the manner in which the Qur'an employs the words 'to create' (khalaqa) and to 'form' (ja'ala) so that we may determine, if possible, whether Muhammad really meant to teach that all things are God's creation in the strict sense of the word.

Muslim theologians, starting from the fact that in many passages in the Qur'an the providential and governing acts of God are described by the word 'create' (khalaqa), have elaborated a doctrine of 'creation ' along certain definite lines, and maintain that every movement of every animate and inanimate being on the face of the earth is the direct creative act of God, using the words 'create', 'creation', etc., in what may be called their strict sense. Thus, for instance, when a man thinks that of his own will he moves his hand he is, they teach, deceiving himself. It is in truth God who creates, and annihilates, and recreates the hand in every successive position which it occupies during the supposed movement. Such an interpretation of the teaching of the Qur'an is based, in so far as it is at all based on the words of the book, on a one-sided explanation of the Qur'anic use of the words 'create', 'creation', etc.

In many passages in the Qur'an the word khalaqa (to create) expresses nothing more than that the action happens or takes place in accordance with the divine purpose, and does not in any sense preclude the use of means or secondary causation. The fact that the word

khalaqa, is employed in any passage in the Qur'an to describe the act of God, must never be regarded as in any way defining the manner or method of the divine action. When, for instance, Muhammad said that God created something, he never dreamed of maintaining, by the mere employment of the word khalaqa, that the object came into being ex nihilo or by the immediate act of God. This was not the intent of the word. For example, we find it used in the following verse to express the gradual formation of man: 'Was he not a mere embryo? Then he became thick blood of which God formed (literally created) him and fashioned him.' ¹ With this we must compare another passage in which the word (ja'ala) is employed. 'God, too, hath given (ja'ala) you wives of your own race, and from your wives hath He given (ja'ala) sons and grandsons, and with good things hath He supplied you.' ²

Nor must it be forgotten that the word create (khalaqa) is employed in the Qur'an to express the actions of human beings themselves. 'Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with Ad, at Irem adorned with pillars, whose like have not been reared (lain yukhlaq lit. have not been created) in these lands.' ³

Even the false gods which mankind worships are the 'creation' of men. 'Ye only worship idols beside God, and are the authors of a lie' (lit. and create a lie).⁴ What! will ye join those with Him who cannot create