The seventh point is that, when this meaning is intended, it is qualified by reference to the observer, not the object seen. For example, Allah says:

“And when He made them appear few in your eyes when you met” [al-Anfāl 44].

He thus qualified this by reference to the observers’ eyes. One may say, “This seemed to so-and-so to be a man, but proved to be a woman,” or, “It seemed large, but proved to be small,” and the like. One does not say, “So-and-so came in such-and-such a form, then changed into such-and-such a form,” when the appearance exists only in the observer’s eyes. Such language is never used for a case like this.

If it is asked: What, then, is the difference between what is reported in the hadith and the view that al-Ash‘arī and others reported in their accounts of the doctrines of speculative theologians from the Bakriyyah and the followers of Bakr, the son of Abd al-Wāhid’s sister, when he discussed their disagreement concerning seeing Allah