as referring only to the one seen.

It may be objected: His words “in the most beautiful form” could refer to the act of seeing itself, qualifying the verbal noun rather than the subject or the object. The implied wording would be: “I saw Him, the act of seeing being in the most beautiful form,” with “form” meaning “quality.”

The reply is: If this were correct, it would amount to the first interpretation, because seeing is an attribute of the one who sees, so a quality of his seeing is a quality of him. The meaning would therefore be: “I saw my Lord while I was in the most beautiful form.”

Moreover, form is ascribed only to what subsists in itself. Describing seeing and the like as having a form would require evidence of such usage in the Arabic language. Indeed, in their language, form is ascribed only to certain things that subsist in themselves, as previously noted in the statements of Ibn ‘Abbās, ‘Ikrimah, and others: a thing has a form only if it has a face. Thus his statement (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), “Whoever makes an image will be required to breathe a soul into it, but he will never be able to do so,”