ABSTRACT
The Account of the Creation of the world as it is repeated in several passages in late Meccan Suras is generally derived from the Biblical story of the creation, although it ignores the Biblical account in the details of the events of the creation. The doctrine characteristic for the Biblical story, i.e. that creation ends on the sixth day with the creation of man, is also unknown to the description given in the Quran, however much Biblical reminiscences predominate elsewhere in Muhammad's account of the creation of man. Including the Christians among those for whom the Sabbath is obligatory contradicts the Prophet's opinion, to be discussed below, according to which only the Jews were obliged to rest on the Sabbath. Soon the difference between the Muslim account of the creation on the one hand and the Judaeo-Christian account on the other became one of the most eminent factors of Muslim polemic against the mother religions, in particular against Judaism.
