anything, and are themselves created, and have no power to help them, or to help themselves.' ¹

The word ja'ala is employed very frequently in the Qur'an to express divine action, and the shades of meaning which the word covers are most diverse. In Rodwell's translation we find the following which do not even exhaust the list; to make, to form, to ordain, to appoint, to fix, to place, to give, to allow.

In some places where we should expect to find khalaqa, we find ja'ala employed instead, showing that the acts which in some passages are spoken of as creative may be more generally described. This leads to the conclusion that in the mind of Muhammad acts of creation did not have that sharp and special definiteness which theologians usually ascribe to them.

The following verses will show how ja'ala is thus used. 'And one cried to her (Mary) from below her "Grieve not thou, thy Lord hath provided (ja'ala a streamlet at thy feet." ' ² 'Is not He who hath set (ja'ala) the earth so firm, and hath made (ja'ala) rivers in its midst, and hath placed (ja'ala) mountains on it, and put (ja'ala) a barrier between the two seas?' ³ 'Who hath made everything which He hath created most good; and began the creation of man with clay; Then ordained (ja'ala) his progeny from germs of life, from sorry water.' ⁴

8. In attempting to understand Muhammad's doctrine of the relation in which God stands to the world which

He created, and especially to what we may call the history of the world, using the word history in the widest possible sense, we must not argue from any preconceived idea of what Muhammad must or ought to have meant when he used the word 'create' to describe the acts of God in His providential government of the world. We must argue inversely from the manner in which he employs the word create to cover all the various acts of God, as to what his conception was when he spoke of creation.

And when we do this we come to the conclusion that while to 'create' means at times to cause directly by an expression of will — the command ' Be' — yet, generally speaking, Muhammad employs the word to express simply the fact that what occurs, occurs in accordance with the will of God, without any clear intention of stating how and by what means His will makes itself fulfilled.

9. Yet, while the teaching of the Qur'an on this subject is indefinite, one thing stands out clear. God in His all-wise sustaining and ruling of the world employs means for the accomplishment of the decisions of His almighty will. 'He it is who sendeth the winds as the forerunner of His mercy (rain); and pure water send We down from Heaven, that We may revive by it a dead land: and We give it for a drink to Our creations, beasts and men in numbers. ¹

The winds are the means whereby God carries the rain-clouds withersoever they are needed, and these