in the image of the Most Merciful). Their assertion, “Who could be His likeness and image except His Word and His Spirit?” is pure falsehood on several counts:

First: Allah—“Nothing is comparable to Him” (laysa kamithlihi shayʾ). Besides, the wording of the passage is not “after Our likeness.”

Second: Even if the phrase were accepted at face value, it is not exclusive to the Messiah. Under any interpretation of the words, “We shall create a human being in Our image, after Our likeness” (sanakhluqu basharan ʿalā ṣūratinā shibhanā), the text does not single out Christ.

Third: If by “the Word,” which they claim to be His likeness and image, they mean one of His attributes—such as the knowledge that subsists in Him, or the life that subsists in Him—then an attribute can never be the like of the One described. The described One is a self-subsisting essence, whereas the attribute subsists in that essence; what subsists through another cannot be the equal of what subsists by itself. And if they intend by it something other than His attributes, such as the Messiah’s body and spirit