may Allah bless him and grant him peace; there is no disagreement about this among the scholars of hadith. The judge did not know that it was fabricated. Abū al-Qāsim al-Azajī transmitted it to him among the reports he compiled concerning the divine attributes. Abū al-Qāsim is trustworthy, but the falsehood originated with someone earlier in his chain of transmission. Neither Rawh ibn ʿUbādah nor Abū al-Zubayr ever narrated this, and the scholars of hadith know that.

This wording cannot be the wording of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The term mushāfahah (direct oral address) applies only to speech, not to seeing. Thus one says, “He addresses him directly,” just as some of the early generations explained “He truly spoke to Moses” as meaning “by direct oral address.” Mushāfahah is not used of seeing, for it is originally a verbal noun on the mufāʿalah pattern, derived from shafah (lip), which in us is an organ of speech. Seeing, by contrast, is described using muwājahah (a face-to-face encounter) and muʿāyanah (direct observation). These terms derive from wajh (face) and ʿayn (eye), the organ with which one sees.

A different explanation of this verse is established in the authentic collection through reports from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, narrated by ʿĀ’ishah and Ibn Masʿūd. Thus, in Sahīh Muslim, Masrūq said: “I was reclining in the presence of ʿĀ’ishah