As for the dual form, it indicates a limited number, and He is exalted above that. Thus, if He said:

“What prevented you from prostrating to what I created with My two hands?”

this would not be equivalent to His words:

“From what Our hands have made.”

This is analogous to His words:

“In His hand is the dominion,”

and “In His hand is all good.” Even if He said, “I created,” using the singular form, it would differ from the other expression; how much more so when He says, “I created with My two hands,” using the dual form?

Alongside this is the evidence of the widely transmitted—indeed, mass-transmitted—hadiths, and the consensus of the early generations on what the Quran indicates, as explained at length elsewhere. One example is his statement:

“Those who act justly will be with Allah on pulpits of light, to the right of the Most Merciful—and both His hands are right hands: those who are just in their judgments, with their families, and in whatever is entrusted to them.”

There are other similar examples.

If the speaker believes that the apparent meaning of the texts whose meaning is disputed is of the same kind as the apparent meaning of those whose meaning is agreed upon—with the apparent meaning being intended in all of them—then, when Allah declared that He knows all things and has power over all things, and Ahl al-Sunnah and the leading scholars of the Muslims agreed that these statements are to be understood according to their apparent meaning and that this meaning is intended, it was understood that they did not mean that His knowledge is like our knowledge or His power like our power.

Likewise, when they agreed that He is truly living, truly knowing, and truly powerful, they did not mean that He is like a created being who possesses life, knowledge, and power. Similarly, when they say that His words, exalted is He:

“He loves them, and they love Him,”

“Allah is pleased with them, and they are pleased with Him,”

and:

“Then He rose over the Throne,”

are to be understood according to their apparent meaning, this does not imply that their apparent meaning entails a rising like that of a created being, love like its love, or pleasure like its pleasure.