Know, moreover, that some among later generations say:

“The way of the early generations is to affirm these texts as they have been transmitted, while believing that their apparent meaning is not intended.”

This wording is “ambiguous.” By saying that their apparent meaning is not intended, a person may mean by “apparent meaning” the characteristics of created beings and the attributes of things brought into existence. For example, he may understand “Allah is before the face of the person praying” to mean that He is settled within the wall toward which that person prays, or understand the apparent meaning of “Allah is with us” to be that He is beside us, and so forth. There is no doubt that this is not intended.

Whoever says that the early generations held that this meaning is not intended is correct in substance, but mistaken in stating without qualification that this is the apparent meaning of the verses and hadiths. This impossible meaning is not their apparent meaning, as we have explained elsewhere. Unless, of course, this impossible meaning has come to appear evident to some people; in that case, the person making this statement would be correct in that respect and excused for using such wording. For what is apparent or obscure may differ according to people’s circumstances; it is a relative matter. It would have been better to explain to anyone who believes this to be the apparent meaning that it is not, thereby doing justice to the words of Allah and the words of His Messenger, both in wording and in meaning.

But if the person reporting the position of the early generations means, by saying that “the apparent meaning is not intended according to them,” that the meanings apparent from these verses and hadiths—meanings befitting Allah’s majesty and greatness, not peculiar to the attributes of created beings, but rather necessary for Allah or possible with respect to Him, whether as a possibility in thought or as a possibility in reality—