‘Prostrate to Adam.’” [al-A‘rāf 11]

Allah Most High says: “It is Allah who made the earth a place of settlement for you and the sky a canopy, and formed you, perfecting your forms.” [Ghāfir 64]

He also says: “O man, what has deceived you concerning your Lord, the Generous, (6) who created you, proportioned you, and balanced you, (7) assembling you in whatever form He willed? (8)” [al-Infitār 6–8]

As for his statement that the word “form” is used to mean “attribute”: if he means that a form can be described in words, and that the word “form” denotes an external form that can be verbally described, or a corresponding mental form, then this is plausible. However, this entails that the word “form” must refer to an external form, even if a mental form corresponds to it. If he means that the word “attribute” may denote merely qualities inhering in concrete entities, such as knowledge and power, then this is false. There is no usage in which the expression “so-and-so’s form” means merely the attributes inhering in him, such as knowledge, power, and the like. Rather, this is a kind of