And even if those marvels prove nothing beyond his prophethood—may God’s blessings and peace be upon him—

Ninth Reply:

They say, “The creative Word veiled itself in a created human being that it fashioned for itself,” and they say as well, “Thus it became a dwelling-place for His descent and concealment, since it is subtler than everything else that is subtle among all creatures.”

We answer them, first of all: On what basis do you claim that the human spirit is subtler than every other created thing—that it is more refined than the angels and than the Spirit about which God says, “On the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand in ranks; they shall not speak except for him to whom the Most Merciful has granted permission” [78:38], and that it is finer than the Spirit of which He breathed into Adam when He said, “I breathed into him of My Spirit” [15:29]?

Even if we conceded that the human spirit were the subtlest of all, you yourselves do not assert that the veiling and the union took place with the disembodied human spirit; rather, you insist that it occurred with the dense, blood-filled human body of flesh. Indeed you say, “The Creator took flesh from Mary the Virgin,” so you end up claiming that the Creator took flesh from Mary’s own flesh and from her womb, which is nothing but flesh and blood.