  Adding to the conceptual complexity, one might note too that there are, in Maimonides' own Islamic context, debates about just how to understand the Quranic description of a Creator God. While Quran II, 117 and VI, 101 describe God as the Badī‘, or Absolute Creator, it is unclear exactly what is meant by the activity of ibdā‘ (absolute creation, or innovation) and how it relates to an act of ikhtirā‘ (invention, origination, or making  anew).[16]  Looking to certain Islamic interpretations of God's creative role as described in the Quran, the idea of “creation  ex nihilo  ” can be seen to fall away in light of Quranic verses—such as Quran XI, 7 (“…and His throne was on the water…”) and XLI, 2 (“Then He directed Himself towards the sky, and it was smoke”)—which can be taken (as they are by  Averroes; see DT section 21, B 16),   as overtly signifying substances co-eternal with God (such as the “smoke” of XLI, 2 taken as denoting an eternally co-existing something). For Averroes, the meaning of the Quran on creation is that “[the world's] form really is generated, whereas being itself and time extend continuously at both  extremes…” (DT section 21, B 16).   Along these lines, we might note that there is no reason that the ambiguity (or openness) of what the Quran means in its description of God should not have carried through to Maimonides' own thoughts on the Biblical account, where the philosophically relevant details of God's Genesis act of creation (brī’ah) are arguably left unspecified and open to interpretation.