quite a different significance. According to the best authorities on Arabic lexicology, it combines two senses, that of fostering, bringing up or nourishing, and that of regulating, completing and accomplishing (LL., TA.). Thus its underlying idea is that of fostering things from the crudest state to that of highest perfection, in other words, the idea of evolution. Rāghib1 is even more explicit on this point. According to him, Rabb signifies the fostering of a thing in such a manner as to make it attain one condition after another until it reaches its goal of perfection. There is thus, in the use of the word Rabb, an indication that everything created by God bears the impress of Divine creation, in the characteristic of moving on from lower to higher stages until it reaches perfection. This argument is expanded and made clearer in another very early revelation which runs thus: “Glorify the name of thy Rabb, the Most High! Who creates, then makes complete, and Who measures, then guides” (87:1-3). The full meaning of Rabb is explained here: He creates things and brings them to perfection; He makes things according to a measure and shows them the ways whereby they may attain to perfection. The idea of evolution is fully developed in the first two actions, the creation and the completion, so that everything created by God must attain to its destined completion. The last two actions show how the completion or evolution is brought about. Everything is made according to a measure, that is to say, certain laws of development are inherent in it; and it is also shown a way, that is to say, it knows the line along which it must proceed, so that it may reach its goal of completion. It thus appears that the creative force is not a blind force but one possessing wisdom and acting with a purpose. Even to the ordinary eye, wisdom and purpose are observable in the whole of the Divine creation, from the tiniest particle of dust or blade of grass to the mighty spheres moving in the universe on their appointed courses, because every one of them is travelling along a certain line to its appointed goal of completion.
In this connection attention may be drawn to another characteristic of God’s creation. Everything, we are told, is created in pairs: “And the heaven, We raised it high with power, and We are Makers of the vast extent. And the earth, We have spread it out; how well have We prepared it! And of everything We have created pairs
1 A famous lexicologist of the Holy Qur’ān.