—because, as the Book of our Lord has plainly stated: “Some faces on that Day will be radiant, gazing toward their Lord” (Al-Qiyamah 75:22-23). We interpret the verse only in the way Allah the Exalted intended and knows.

Moses would never ask his Lord for something impermissible; he asked for something that is permissible, though it cannot occur in this worldly life. Thus Allah, glorified is He, said, “You shall not see Me,” and He did not say, “I am never to be seen.” Allah will indeed be seen in the Hereafter(1), and the people most entitled to that vision are the prophets.

The phrase “without asking how” means that one must not enquire, “How will they see Allah?” As with all of Allah’s attributes, we do not know their modality. We affirm them, grasp their meaning, and uphold them, but the “how” is unknown to us; Allah, exalted and glorified, knows it best.

The verse is explicit that the gaze is a literal sight of Allah, for the verb “to look” is followed by the preposition ilā (“toward”), which in Arabic denotes seeing with the eyes. The Muʿtazilah have claimed that ilā rabbihā should be read as ilā in the sense of “blessings,” rendering the verse “looking at the blessings of their Lord.” Such a notion is sheer nonsense that sensible people laugh at, for a preposition cannot be transformed into a plural noun.

Therefore the true explanation of “gazing toward their Lord” (Al-Qiyamah 75:23) is exactly as He intended.