as well as al-Fudayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, Wakīʿ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, Aswad ibn Sālim, Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū ʿUbayd, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, and many others in this field; recounting all of their exact statements would take too long.

He then says: “What proves the invalidity of taʾwīl (figurative interpretation) is that the Companions—and after them the Successors—took these texts according to their evident meaning. They never attempted to reinterpret them or divert them from their outward sense. Had figurative interpretation been permissible, they would have been the first to adopt it, for it would remove any suspicion of anthropomorphism and dispel every doubt.”