Likewise, everything a person touches must be in a direction, whereas something may often be in a direction without our being able to touch it. How, then, can one affirm that He may be touched while denying that He is in a direction? Is this not an outright contradiction? Indeed, it is to deny something while affirming what goes even further, and to forbid something while deeming something even graver permissible. As Ibn ʿUmar said, “They ask me for a ruling on the blood of a mosquito, yet they have killed the daughter’s son of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace!” Indeed, as Allah Most High says:

“Fighting therein is a grave sin, but barring people from the way of Allah, disbelieving in Him, barring access to the Sacred Mosque, and expelling its people from it are graver in Allah’s sight.” [al-Baqarah 217]

This is like someone saying that Allah cannot be seen, yet one may shake hands with Him and embrace Him. Likewise, their assertion that He may be seen, and their assertion that He may be perceived by touch, alongside their claim that He cannot be perceived by the senses, constitute an obvious contradiction.

If, then, this is a contradiction on their part—and it is well known that the doctrine that He may be seen is established by mass-transmitted texts from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and by the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars—then the truth of this doctrine entails that He can be perceived by the senses, which in turn entails the invalidity of what