and the beard, and ask me about anything beyond that’—or he said, ‘about whatever you wish.’ Many theologians have related that Dāwūd and Muqātil said that the one they worship is a body of flesh and blood, with limbs and organs—a hand, a foot, a tongue, a head, and two eyes—yet He resembles nothing else, nor does anything else resemble Him.

Another account relates that al-Jawāribī used to say that He is hollow from His mouth to His chest and solid everywhere else. It was mentioned that Muqātil ibn Sulaymān rejected this last view.

Ibrāhīm al-Nazzām reported in his book, concerning the anthropomorphists, that a group of people—I do not know whether they belong to the Muslim community or not—claimed that the one they worship is a body that is space, and that all bodies are within it. He related that others said He is space, not a body, because a body requires a place, whereas He is Himself that place. Al-Jāhiz reported in his book, concerning the anthropomorphists, that