The judge then said: “Abū Bakr al-Khallāl narrated from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning the words:

‘We made the vision which We showed you only as a trial for the people’ [al-Isrā’ 60],

that he said, ‘It was a vision seen with the eyes, shown to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, on the night of his Night Journey.’”

This hadith is authentic; al-Bukhārī and others narrated it, as mentioned earlier. However, it does not indicate that the Lord, Exalted is He, was seen. For this reason, al-Khallāl did not include it among the hadiths concerning Muhammad’s seeing his Lord. Rather, he mentioned it earlier among the hadiths concerning the Night Journey. He said: “A detailed account of the merits of our Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, which the misguided Jahmiyyah have denied: the merits mentioned concerning the Night Journey, the vision, and other matters.”

Then he said: “An account of the Night Journey. Al-Marrūdhī informed us, saying, ‘I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh’—then he related, from Mūsā, from ʿUqbah, that he had said, ‘The hadiths about the Night Journey relate a dream.’ Abū ʿAbd Allāh said, ‘This is what the Jahmiyyah say,’ and he compiled the hadiths