Ibn Mujāhid, Qāḍī Abū Bakr, Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāʾīnī, Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak, Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, and others argued: “The word ‘hand’ can only be understood as a limb of a body. Consequently, if you affirm that Allah possesses a hand yet insist that it is not a bodily limb, your claim is unintelligible.”

The attribute-affirmers replied: “Just as we can form no conception of life, knowledge, power, speech, hearing, or sight except as accidents that inhere in a body—yet we nevertheless affirm these attributes for Allah, and all of us, you and we alike, maintain that they are not accidents of created bodies—so too do we affirm these textual attributes and say that they are not bodily parts. There is no greater warrant for denying ‘parts’ of a body here than for denying ‘accidents’ there.”