Moreover, in that very place the hardship will arise and grow more intense, and it will not be lifted except by entry into Paradise(1). There they are not called to prostrate; rather, they are summoned to do so when the hardship is at its most severe.

Ninth: The Jahmī’s assertion that the outward sense of the Qur’an indicates that Allah, exalted is He, possesses many hands on one side and numerous eyes on a single face is a slur upon the Qur’an—an act of belittling and disparaging it. Neither its outward wording nor its deeper purport conveys anything of the sort, nor would anyone of sound intellect understand that from it. If that were truly the apparent meaning of the Qur’an, the one who conveyed it would only repel those invited to believe in Allah and His Messenger and open the way(2) for them(3) to level criticism against it.

Allah, exalted is He, says, “sailing under Our eyes” (54:14); and He says, “and build the ark under Our eyes” (11:37); and He says, “So be patient for the command of your Lord, for indeed you are under Our eyes” (52:48). He also says, “Have they not seen(4) that We created for them, out of what Our hands have wrought, livestock” (36:71). Concerning the story of Moses He says, “that you might be raised under My eye” (20:39). Thus He mentions the eye in the singular attached to a singular pronoun, and the eyes in the plural attached to a plural pronoun.

The singular mention of the eye does not indicate that it is one lone eye; it is like a person’s saying, “I shall do this for the sake of my eye,” “I shall come to you for my eye,” or “I shall carry it upon my eye.” He does not mean that he has only one eye. If anyone were to understand this from the outward speech(5) of a creature