chosen from the line of David. Allah selected her for this dispensation from among all the women of all worlds, and He purified her by the Holy Spirit—His essential Spirit—until He made her fit for the indwelling of Allah’s essential Word. Thereupon the creative Word veiled itself in a created human being that it fashioned for its own sake, with the Father’s good pleasure and the assistance of the Holy Spirit: a new creation brought forth without Adamic seed, tainted as it is by sin, without human intercourse, and without the rupture of that holy maiden’s virginity. Thus he is a complete human being, possessing a body, a blood-soul, and a rational, word-bearing spirit that reflects the image and likeness of Allah in humankind. Because of its surpassing subtlety above all other subtle creatures, that spirit became a dwelling place for Allah in His indwelling and self-concealment.

Know that nothing belonging to the subtle realm of creation can be perceived except within something denser; nor is what is subtle within the subtle perceived except in conjunction with something denser than itself, as it appears to those weighed down by corporeality among the gross creatures. We have found the rational, word-bearing human spirit to be subtler than the subtlest of created things, and therefore the most suited of Allah’s creatures to serve as a veil for Allah. It became a veil for Him and for what is subtler than itself; the sanguine soul became its veil, and the dense body yet another veil.

Accordingly, the creative Word of Allah intermingled with the complete human self—body, blood, and rational, word-bearing spirit—and by its own abiding subsistence became the sustaining principle of that three-part human nature. Its very substance was perfected when the Word of Allah established and upheld it, for it was neither created nor did it come into being save through a subsistence derived from the Word of Allah, who created it and brought it into existence.