and His words:
“The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him,”
and His words:
“The angels and the Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord.”
It has also been said that it is, rather, the human spirit. Both views are well known. Whether the verse encompasses both or refers to only one of them, it contains nothing indicating that the spirit is uncreated, for two reasons.
The first is that, in the Quran, “command” sometimes denotes the act of commanding and sometimes denotes its object—that which is commanded—as in His words, Most High:
“The command of Allah has come, so do not seek to hasten it,”
and His words:
“And Allah’s command is a decree determined.”
This usage also occurs with words other than “command,” such as “creation,” “power,” “mercy,” “word,” and others. Even if it were said that the spirit is some of Allah’s command, or a part of Allah’s command, or something similar explicitly identifying it as part of Allah’s command, “command” could only mean that which is commanded, not the act of commanding. For the spirit is a self-subsisting entity: it comes and goes, experiences bliss, and suffers punishment. Such an entity cannot conceivably be what is denoted by the verbal noun in amara, ya’muru, amran (“he commanded, he commands, commanding”). This is the position of the early generations of the Muslim community, its leading scholars, and its majority. Even a speculative theologian who says that the spirit is an accident inhering in the body does not regard it as the act denoted by the verbal noun in amara, ya’muru, amran (“he commanded, he commands, commanding”).
When the Quran is called Allah’s command, the Quran is the speech of “Allah.” The word kalām (“speech”) is a verbal noun of kallama, yukallimu (“he spoke, he speaks”), with the verbal nouns taklīm and kalām (“speaking”), and of takallama (“he spoke”), with the verbal nouns takallum and kalām (“speaking”). Thus, calling it a command in the sense of the verbal noun is appropriate, especially since speech is of two kinds: commands and statements.