in a dream, the version of this hadith quoted here, which places the event on the night of the Night Journey, is nevertheless a fabricated and falsely attributed report, as will be explained, Allah Most High willing. For the Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, did not say: “On the night I was taken on the Night Journey, I saw my Lord in the most beautiful form, and He asked, ‘What is the highest assembly disputing about?’” Rather, he stated that his Lord came to him in a dream, said this to him, and placed His hand between his shoulders—all in a dream he had in Medina.

For this reason, no hadith scholar used this report as evidence; rather, they narrated it for use as evidence. Nor has anyone established it as one of the hadiths recognized by scholars of hadith, as we have explained.

It is thus clear that al-Qādī had nothing on which to base the account of seeing Him while awake except Ibn ʿAbbās’s statement and the verse in Sūrat al-Najm. We have collected the various wordings of Ibn ʿAbbās’s statement. The strongest argument available to someone who affirms seeing with the eyes is that Ibn ʿAbbās intended this by his unqualified wording, for several reasons.

First, it may be said that this is what an unqualified reference to seeing implies. Second, because ʿĀ’ishah said, “Whoever claims that Muhammad saw his Lord