24 Preface أَلَم تَرَ كَيفَ ضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلًا كَلِمَةً طَيِّبَةً كَشَجَرَةٍ طَيِّبَةٍ أَصلُها ثابِتٌ وَفَرعُها فِي السَّماءِAhmed AliDo you not see how God compares a noble act1 to a healthy tree whose roots are firm and branches in the sky, which yields Kalimat, literally ‘word’ stands in the Qur’an for ‘act’, speaking life into existence, explicit in kalimat-Allah. As soon as God speaks He transforms His word into act Kun, Be, and it came into being, showing that it was not created out of something else, other than God’s command. Since one of the basis meanings of the word kalam is to ‘wound’ (Ibn Faris), kalimat implies action, and it is the word of God that creates, and thus, for act, action through command, though in 18:109 or 31:27, kalimat stands for acts and creations of God in general, inclusive of all divine words and wonders.