“What are they disputing about?”—he replied, “I do not know.” Then He placed His hand between his shoulders until he felt the coolness of His fingertips on his chest, so that He Himself might teach him what he did not know. Hence he said, “Immediately afterward, what lies between heaven and earth became manifest to me.” Thus, this disclosure and knowledge resulted from His placing His hand between his shoulders; they were not identical with what lies between the shoulders, nor with the placing of the hand itself.

Fourth: Nothing in the wording, whether understood literally or figuratively, supports calling what lies between the shoulders kindness and mercy.

Fifth: He must take kindness and mercy reaching the Prophet’s heart to be the meaning either of “between my shoulders” or of “Then He placed His hand between my shoulders.” If the former, how can a bare, isolated phrase convey the meaning of a whole sentence? On what basis would it do so? If the latter, this would be the interpretation of “Then He placed His hand between my shoulders,” and the two earlier interpretations of “Then He placed His hand” would both be invalid, since this would be the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

As for his statement, “It has also been transmitted as ‘bayna kanafayya’ (between my two sides),” there are several objections. First, this is a scribal corruption and an outright falsehood, either deliberate