his messenger, bearing ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar’s question: “How did he see Him?” Ibn ʿAbbās sent him the reply: “He saw Him in a green meadow, with moths of gold before Him, upon a seat of gold borne by four angels,” as mentioned earlier. The bearers of the Throne are indeed four, in the forms described.

Fifth, he stated that Allah singled out Muhammad for seeing Him, just as He singled out Moses for being spoken to by Him. It is well known that seeing with the heart is shared by others and is not exclusive to Muhammad, just as receiving revelation is not exclusive to Moses. Thus, according to Ibn ʿAbbās’s hadith, Muhammad must have been granted a distinction in seeing Him that others were not granted, just as Moses was granted a corresponding distinction in being spoken to by Him.

It was on these three narrations that Ibn Khuzaymah relied in affirming the vision, when he said: