and “organs” is not part of the terminology used by those who affirm the divine attributes. The substance of his argument is that if Allah created Adam with His two hands, wrote the Torah with His two hands, and created Eden with His two hands, then Allah would need a hand in order to act, which would be incompatible with His being al-Samad. Yet these acts are established by the Book and the authentic Sunnah, whose authenticity is agreed upon and which has been received with acceptance.

This argument may be addressed in several ways. First, affirming those attributes established by the evidence does not entail that the Lord needs them. Allah, glorified is He, is able to create what He creates with His two hands, and able to create what He creates without His two hands. Transmitted reports state that He created some things with His two hands and others without His two hands. ‘Uthmān ibn Sa‘īd al-Dārimī said: ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sālih narrated to us: