This wording makes it explicit that Allah—exalted is He—neither became ill nor went hungry; it was His servant who fell ill and His servant who hungered. Yet He attributed the servant’s hunger and illness to Himself, clarifying the meaning with the words, “Had you fed him, you would have found that with Me; and had you visited him, you would have found Me with him.” Thus nothing in the report remains in need of figurative interpretation.

As for the saying, “The hearts of the servants are between two of the Merciful One’s fingers,” its outward sense does not imply that the heart is physically connected to, touching, or enclosed by the fingers. In the same way, when someone says, “This is between my two hands,” the phrase does not require actual contact with the hands. Likewise, the Qur’anic verse, “and the clouds made subservient between heaven and earth” (Q 2:164), does not mean that the clouds are touching heaven or earth. Similar examples are plentiful.

[The difference between His words, “for what I created with My own two hands,” and His words, “out of what Our hands have fashioned.”]

A further error is to equate a phrase with something that is not truly comparable. Thus some have claimed that His statement, “What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My own two hands?” (Q 38:75) is the same as His words, “Have they not seen that We created for them, out of what Our hands have wrought, cattle?” (Q 36:71).