Nor is it permissible, either in the Arabic language or in customary speech, for someone to say, ‘I did such and such with my hand,’ intending by ‘hand’ a favor. Since Allah addressed the Arabs in their own language, using what was understood in their speech and intelligible in their discourse, and since eloquent speakers cannot say, ‘I did such and such with my hand,’ intending thereby a favor, it is untenable to interpret His words, exalted is He, ‘with My two Hands,’ as meaning a favor.” He discussed this and similar points at length.

The judge Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Tayyib al-Bāqillānī, the theologian—who was the most accomplished of the theologians affiliated with al-Ashʿarī, with none equal to him either before or after him—said in his own work, Kitāb al-Ibānah (The Book of Clarification):

“If someone asks, ‘What is the evidence that Allah has a Face and a Hand?’ he is answered with His words:

‘And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor.’

And His words, exalted is He:

‘What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My two Hands?’

Thus, He affirmed for Himself a Face and a Hand.

If he asks, ‘Why, then, do you deny that His Face and Hand are bodily organs, when you cannot conceive of a face or a hand except as a bodily organ?’ we reply: This does not necessarily follow. Likewise, even if we cannot conceive of a living, knowing, powerful being except as a body, neither we nor you must therefore judge Allah, glorified and exalted is He, to be a body. Nor must everything that subsists in itself be a substance merely because neither we nor you have encountered anything self-subsisting in our observable experience except as such;