Mu‘āwiyah ibn Sālih, from Abū Yahyā, from Abū Yazīd, from Abū Sallām, from Thawbān—may Allah be pleased with him—that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:

“My Lord came to me in the most beautiful form and said, ‘O Muhammad, what is the highest assembly disputing about?’ I replied, ‘I have no knowledge of that, my Lord.’ Then He placed His palm between my shoulders until I felt the coolness of His fingertips on my chest, and all that lay between heaven and earth became manifest to me.”

The opponent then claimed that this could mean: “My Lord might bring a most beautiful form from among His creation. That form came to me; it was other than Allah, while Allah directed affairs within it. ‘He placed His palm between my shoulders until I felt the coolness of His fingertips within my chest’ refers to that form, which was part of His creation. The fingertips belonged to that form and were attributed to Allah in the sense that all creation belongs to Allah.”