50قالَ رَبُّنَا الَّذي أَعطىٰ كُلَّ شَيءٍ خَلقَهُ ثُمَّ هَدىٰMuhammad AsadHe replied: "Our Sustainer is He who gives unto every thing [that exists] its true nature and form and thereupon guides it [towards its fulfilment].1In the original, this sentence appears in the past tense ("has given" and "has guided"); but as it obviously relates to the continuous process of God's creation, it is independent of the concept of time and denotes, as in so many other places in the Qur'an. an unceasing present. The term khalq signifies in this context not merely the inner nature of a created thing or being but also the outward form in which this nature manifests itself; hence my composite rendering of khalqahu as "its true nature and form". The idea underlying the above sentence is expressed for the first time in 87:2-3, i.e., in a surah which belongs to the earliest period of Qur'anic revelation.