words, abd and rabb. In relation to God a human being is an abd or ‘slave’, while God is the rabb, usually translated ‘lord’ but perhaps connoting rather something more august such as ‘sovereign.’ ”52 Closely related to this image of man as slave and God as the absolute sovereign, is the idea of the limitedness or, according to some orthodox schools, the nonexistence of human freedom. W. Montgomery Watt writes: In the Qur’an and in early Muslim thinkers no use was made of the conception of human