—in spoken words” (al-Nisāʾ 4:163); and his ﷺ statement: “There is none of you but that his Lord will speak to him, with no interpreter between the two translating for him and no veil screening Him” (1); and his words: “You shall certainly see your Lord with your very eyes” (2).

Such is the nature of most texts on the divine attributes: when someone whose breast Allah has opened to accept them reflects upon them and rejoices in what has been revealed to the Messenger, he finds them encircled by contextual clues and emphatic devices that bar the door to the allegorical distortions of would-be interpreters.

Seventh: Every interpretation that overturns the very basis of a text is itself invalid. An example is reading the Prophet’s ﷺ statement, “Any woman who marries herself off without the permission of her guardian, her marriage is null and void” (3) as referring exclusively to an ʾamah (female slave). This construction—not only flagrantly at odds with the manifest wording—strikes at the text’s own foundation, for he ﷺ went on to say, “If he has already consummated the marriage with her, she is entitled to the bridal gift for what he has made lawful of her private part,” whereas the mahr of an ʾamah belongs to her master. They therefore replied, “We restrict the hadith to one who is a mukātabah (slave-girl under a contract of manumission).” This