—so ill-conceived as to be laughable to anyone who has taken even the slightest care to distinguish the various kinds of discourse—is the explicit assertion, as part of revealed religion, of what Allah and His Messenger have not authorized: explicitly denying corporeality before the general public. For it is difficult to combine in a single belief the existence of a being who is not a body with the belief that He is visible to the eyes, since the objects apprehended by the senses either inhere in bodies or are themselves bodies. Some have therefore held that this vision amounts to an increase in knowledge at that time. This, too, is unsuitable for openly conveying to the general public.

For the understanding of the general public is inseparable from imagination; indeed, whatever they cannot imagine they regard as nonexistent. Since it is impossible to imagine what is not a body, and they cannot assent to the existence of what cannot be imagined, revelation refrained from explicitly conveying this meaning to them. He, glorified and exalted is He, therefore described Himself to them through attributes accessible to their faculty of imagination, such as hearing, sight, the face, and other attributes, while making known to them that no existing thing they can imagine belongs to the same kind as Him or resembles Him. Had the intention been to teach the general public that He is not a body, He would not have explicitly told them any of