such that one is in the image of the other, despite the immense differences in the nature and dimensions of their respective beings. The heavens and the moon may appear as an exceedingly small image in water or a mirror, and one may say, “This is their image,” while knowing that the actual heavens and earth are incomparably greater than that image. Likewise, an artist depicts the heavens, stars, sun, moon, mountains, and seas, although what he depicts, despite resembling them, is utterly remote from their actual nature and dimensions.

The meaning conveyed by a possessive construction varies according to its referent. Thus, when he says at the end of the hadith, “Everyone who enters Paradise will be in Adam’s image, sixty cubits tall,” this implies similarity in both kind and dimensions, because the image being ascribed is of the same kind as the image of the one to whom it is ascribed, and the two share the same essential nature. As for the words, “He created Adam in His image,” these imply