This is what we previously mentioned at the beginning of this book of ours. As for the spirits of metamorphosis (al-Masukhiyya): when they depart from the human temple (Haykal) they inhabited, they enter the metamorphosed temple along with its food and drink. The spirit continues to circulate within its body, seeking a dwelling to shelter it, but finds none—because every limb of the animal body already possesses an animal spirit that maintains it. Thus, that spirit continues to circulate among the limbs, and none accept it except the organs of semen (al-Mani), which it then mingles with. It becomes therein whatever God wills, then exits into the womb, and from the womb, it becomes either Transcription (Naskh) or Metamorphosis (Maskh).
[14] This is supported by what Abu 'Ali—may God sanctify him—narrated to me, from al-'Adawi, from 'Abd Allah ibn al-'Ala', from Abu al-Haytham, from the Knower (al-'Alim)—exalted is His might—that he said: "When the sperm-drop falls, it does no it must necessarily result in an offspring. And there is no offspring unless there is in the mold (al-Qalib) 1 a soul other than its own. For if it were from the [same] soul seen in the mold, the soul would be divided into many parts 2 . Do you understand?"