has explicitly mentioned the Face and the two Hands in more than one verse of His Book. These verses may give the impression that corporeality is one of His attributes in which the Creator surpasses the creature, just as He surpasses it in power, will and other attributes shared by Creator and creature, though they are more fully realized in the Creator.

For this reason, many Muslims have come to believe that the Creator is a body unlike other bodies. This is the position of the Hanbalīs and many of their followers.

These, too, have gone astray, since they have explicitly asserted what is intrinsically untrue and also suggests a resemblance between Creator and creature.

Revelation has only explicitly mentioned things which it does no harm to imagine. These are imagined by people who cannot conceive of a being that is not a body, and for whom there is also no fear that hearing these things will lead their minds to affirm corporeality.

This is the condition of most people, for those who are led by such statements to affirm corporeality are few. Their duty is to acquaint themselves with the proofs that necessitate denying corporeality.”