Is it permissible for the caller to say: "O Face of Allah"?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : The common people say "O Face of Allah."
The Shaykh : That is, they ask Allah by His Face.
The questioner : This is a matter of discussion.
The Shaykh : There is no harm in it.
The questioner : Whether by the attribute or by the Face.
The Shaykh : No, they do not intend "O Face of Allah" to seek nearness to Allah the Exalted by an attribute of His attributes, as if they intend the Face as something separate from Allah. They do not intend that at all. If you ask the common person, he would say, "I did not intend that." But when he says "O Face of Allah," he means that he seeks nearness to Allah the Exalted by His Face, just as he says, "By Your mercy I seek aid." He seeks aid from Allah, but this is in the category of seeking nearness through mercy. Yes.
The Shaykh : That is, they ask Allah by His Face.
The questioner : This is a matter of discussion.
The Shaykh : There is no harm in it.
The questioner : Whether by the attribute or by the Face.
The Shaykh : No, they do not intend "O Face of Allah" to seek nearness to Allah the Exalted by an attribute of His attributes, as if they intend the Face as something separate from Allah. They do not intend that at all. If you ask the common person, he would say, "I did not intend that." But when he says "O Face of Allah," he means that he seeks nearness to Allah the Exalted by His Face, just as he says, "By Your mercy I seek aid." He seeks aid from Allah, but this is in the category of seeking nearness through mercy. Yes.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، [722] هل يجوز للداعي أن يقول: "يا وجه الله"؟ - ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.