And as for the claim made by some that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) saw a man striking another and saying, “May Allah disfigure your face and the face of anyone whose face resembles yours,” whereupon he said, “Allah created Adam in His image”—meaning in the image of the man being struck—this has no basis and is not known in any of the books of hadith.

Second, the wording of the other hadith is: “When one of you fights, let him avoid the face, for Allah created Adam in His image.” No one is mentioned here to whom the pronoun could refer.

Third, the wording cited and interpreted by Ibn Khuzaymah—“Let none of you say, ‘May Allah disfigure your face and any face resembling yours,’ for Allah created Adam in His image”—mentions no one to whom the pronoun could appropriately refer. As for his explanation, “The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) meant that Allah created Adam in the image of this man being struck, whose face he instructed the striker to avoid striking, and whose