corruption of the corrupted things, neither by created nor by eternal knowledge. This is an innovation in Islam, “And is thy Lord forgetful of thee?”[56] The attribute of life is quite evident from the attribute of Knowledge. For our observation shows that one of the conditions of knowledge is life. According to the Mutakallimun the conditions of an observed object can be applied to the unseen. What they have said about this is quite true. The attribute of volition needs no proof, because it is one of the conditions of bringing forth a thing, that its maker must intend it. Such is also the case with power: He must possess power. But to say that He intended created things by eternal intention is innovation in religion, which was not known to the learned in Law, and cannot satisfy the masses who have reached the stage of dogmatics. We should say that He intends making a thing at the time of its creation, but does not intend at the time of its non-existence. So God says: “Verily our speech unto anything when we will the same is that we say unto it, Be; and it is.”[57] For, as we have said, the common people are never compelled to advance the argument that He intends doing a thing by eternal intention, but, as the Mutakallimun have said, that that by which the created things exist, is itself created. Now if it be asked, how the attribute of Speech be assigned to and proved in God, we would say that it can be ascribed to him on account of the attributes of Knowledge and Power of creation. For speech is nothing more than act on the part of the speaker to show to the one addressed the knowledge which he has, or to disclose to him the knowledge which is in him. This is one of the actions of the maker. And when that created thing, which is really a creator, man, has power over this faculty, because he knows and is powerful, how befitting it is that it should be found in the real Creator. There is another condition for this action, among the things which we can observe, and that is that which must be the means of performing it: words. This being so, it becomes necessary that that action should be performed by God in the heart of somebody, His chosen servant. It is not necessary that it should always be through the medium of words, and so created. But it may happen either through an angel; or through divine inspiration, that is without the medium of words which He may create, but through an act to the hearer, which discloses to him the true nature of the thing meant, or through words which He may create in the ears of him who has been specialised to hear His words. It is to these three methods that the verse of the Quran refers, “It is not fit for a man that God should speak unto him otherwise than by private revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal, by His permission, that which He pleaseth.”[58] So revelation is the disclosure of the intended secrets to the inspired person without the medium of words which He