this explanation cannot properly be applied to this wording. For if someone says, “He created Adam in Adam’s image,” or “in the image Adam had,” intending thereby his dimensions—namely, that he was sixty cubits tall—this interpretation of the statement would require its hearers already to know those dimensions. An expression made definite by a possessive construction or the definite article presupposes the hearers’ prior knowledge of what it designates. Yet it is known that the hearers did not know Adam’s height.

Likewise, the explanations mentioned concerning Adam’s image—that he had not been transformed, that he was created in that form from the outset, and the like—cannot be applied to his dimensions, since those matters were known, whereas his dimensions were not.

Thus, the hadith conveys two statements: that He created Adam in His image, and that Adam’s height was sixty cubits. These dimensions are not the dimensions of the image in which he was created, such that one could say that it is Adam’s image.