the image in which Adam was created should postdate his creation, whether it was his own image or someone else’s. Thus, when someone says, “I made this in the image of that,” or “according to that model,” or “This was not made in the image of anything else,” or “It was not made according to a model,” or “It was not woven according to another’s pattern”—as when Allah Most High is glorified by saying, “Allah created the world without a prior model,” or “Origination is creating something without a prior model,” and similar expressions—the meaning necessarily understood from the language, by ordinary people and specialists alike, is that something follows a pre-existing image and model, or was not made according to a pre-existing image and model.

This is because such wording conveys the sense of comparison. Saying that something was created, made, or fashioned in a particular image, or according to its model or pattern, implies that it was measured against it and proportioned accordingly. Thus, all the proposed interpretations involve something—or an image—that came after him, and are therefore invalid.