“Wipe over your heads, and [wash] your feet up to the ankles”

has “your feet” coordinated with the faces and hands.

Ibn Aqīl said:

Section: Their Questions

They have gone to the utmost lengths of strained reasoning and forced interpretation to demonstrate that the wording is literal.

Among their statements is the following:

Qaryah (“village”) means a gathering of people. It is derived from qaraytu al-mā’a fī al-hawd (“I collected water in the basin”), and from mā qara’at al-nāqatu fī rahimihā (“the she-camel has carried nothing in her womb”). Likewise, the hospitality-related terms muqri’ and muqrin refer to guests gathering with their hosts. The Quran and qirā’ah (“recitation”) are so named for the same reason, since they comprise words gathered together. Similarly, gathering properly applies to people, not walls. Thus, He intended only the gathering of people, which is itself the literal meaning of qaryah. This is clarified by His words, Most High:

“And those towns—We destroyed them when they did wrong,”

and His words, Most High:

“And how many a town rebelled against the command of its Lord and His messengers!”

This refers to the gathering—to the people, not the walls. And ‘īr means a caravan.

They said:

If Allah wills buildings and donkeys to speak, He makes them speak. The age of prophethood is a time of extraordinary occurrences. Had he questioned them, they would have answered him about his situation, as a miracle and an honor granted to him.