according to the apparent sense of the discourse.

Second: an accompanying contextual indication warrants a shift from the literal to the figurative meaning.

Third: the subject to which the literal meaning is ascribed, or the meaning with which it is associated, cannot accommodate that literal sense, so one turns instead to the figurative meaning.

If they say that affirming a real hand as an attribute of Allah Most High is impossible because something precludes it, this is incorrect. The Creator, Most High, is an essence capable of possessing attributes whose affirmation stands on the same footing as the affirmation of that essence. For the Creator, Most High, is in Himself an essence that is neither a substance, nor a body, nor an accident. He has no quiddity that is known, apprehended, or established on the testimony of reason, nor has mention of such a quiddity come down through transmitted revelation.

If, then, the affirmation of a quiddity is excluded with respect to Him, and if all this is excluded and any likeness is thereby precluded, then recoiling from our saying “a hand” under these circumstances is like recoiling from our saying “an essence.” Whatever means they employ to reject the affirmation of an essence as we have described it also provides a means of rejecting a hand, for we draw no distinction between the two in their affirmation. But if they are unable to do so, because decisive proof obliges them to acknowledge the essence as we have described it, then that same approach establishes their inability to deny a hand that is an attribute befitting the essence in these respects. This is a clear and inescapable consequence.