with His hand? Then name it. Otherwise, whoever claims that Allah Most High did not undertake Adam’s creation through direct contact with His hand [thereby claims that] He created no living being with His two hands. It was for this reason that He singled Adam out, favored him, and honored his name thereby. Were it not so, Adam would have no distinction in this respect over any other creature, since, according to your claim, all were created without direct contact.

As for your statement, “An emphasis on creation,” by my life, it is indeed an emphasis—but you have misunderstood its meaning and reversed it. Rather, it emphasizes the two hands, affirms their reality, and clarifies them, so that Allah’s servants may know that the wording affirms direct contact with a hand. For Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has created many things in the heavens and the earth, greater and smaller than Adam, and He created the prophets and messengers. Why, then, did He not emphasize in the creation of any of them what He emphasized in Adam’s creation, given that, according to al-Marīsī, other created beings stand in the same relation to Allah Most High’s hand as Adam does? If he is truthful in his claim,