In His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): ((And to be made before My eyes)); is it taken from this to affirm the attribute of the eye for Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)?

The questioner : The last question: Is it taken from the verse that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has an eye? And also the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): ; is it taken from this that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has fingers?

The Shaykh : There is no doubt, but it is not taken from the verse that it is in the eye of Allah as some of the *ta'til* (denial of the divine attributes) people imagine; because the verse here is in the sense they call *ta'wil* (figurative interpretation), "in the eye of Allah" means in our eyes; that is, in our observation and our awareness. This is not *ta'wil* as many of the *ta'til* people think; this is the meaning that the Arab does not understand any other way—the Arab does not understand any other way—and there are examples of this, and some of the later scholars call it from the category of *ta'wil*. For example, when it came in Surat Yusuf, His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): , every Arab understands that the meaning of is: its people, and is: its people. This is not *ta'wil*, but they think it is *ta'wil*; that is because *ta'wil* in their terminology is a sentence that has two meanings: a real meaning that comes to the mind first, and a figurative meaning that does not come to the mind except by way of *ta'wil*. So they say that we only understand the Arabic text by the first way, by the meaning that comes to the mind, which they call *haqiqah* (reality), unless there is evidence that carries us to interpret the text by way of *ta'wil*. This is the first example: , and the other example: , this description is not correct in it; that is, the one who hears both verses does not imagine in his mind that the meaning of "in our eyes" is in a locative sense, and that this one whom our Lord is addressing is in the eye of Allah, meaning: in the interior of the eye of Allah. No one understands this meaning; rather, they understand the second meaning, which they call *majaz* (metaphor) or they call it *ta'wil*. Calling this *ta'wil* is contrary to the rule; the rule is that *ta'wil* is when the meaning is not the one that comes to the mind, and the meaning that comes to the mind is the real meaning. For example: , this is a verse in the Qur'an. What comes to the listener? Allah Himself, His essence, His greatness and His majesty, came. They bring a meaning that does not come to the mind, so they say: means the angels of your Lord, or it means the mercy of your Lord, or something like that. So our saying here in the verse , the apparent meaning is this: that Allah Himself came. It is not like the verse: , meaning its walls!! No one understands this speech.
Therefore, the meaning that comes to the mind is the real meaning, but by convention, some of the later scholars call this *majaz* (metaphor). What kind of *majaz* is it? It is *majaz* of omission; there is an omitted possessive. means: the people of the village. This meaning is the correct one, and it is the reality, and there are many examples in the Arabic language that show you that the matter has precision, and there is a deviation from the way of the Salaf (the earliest generations) with doubts that have no value at all. When the Arab says: "The gutter flowed," if you stand still and are affected by the concepts of reality and metaphor, you must understand that "the gutter flowed" means that a very intense heat surrounded the atmosphere of the gutter so it became like water and flowed. Does anyone imagine this meaning from the Arab's saying: "The gutter flowed"? No one. Rather, they understand "the gutter flowed" to mean: the water of the gutter. This understanding is not *ta'wil*, my brothers; this is the intended meaning from the day the Arab's tongue moved with this phrase. "The gutter flowed" does not mean the gutter itself flowed, but rather the water that flows in it. Likewise, for example, when the Arab says: "The river flowed," the river in language is the trench, the long hole in which water flows. So when the Arab says: "The river flowed," it does not mean the land of the river, the trench, flowed. As, for example, we saw here at the airport, this electric escalator, when a person rides it and walks on it... rather, the Arab means by "the river flowed": the water of the river. This meaning is called by convention *ta'wil*, but the reality is the reality, and there is no *majaz*. Why? Because there are not two meanings that can be interpreted this way and that way; rather, it is one meaning. Unlike the examples they give where there is *haqiqah* (reality) and *majaz* (metaphor), and we say it is obligatory for us to interpret it according to the reality; because there is no evidence that carries us to the metaphor. As we said: , , what forces them to *ta'wil*? It is possible that there is *ta'wil* there, but the original is that there is no *ta'wil*; the original is that the phrase is understood as it came.
I say, on this occasion, in our lands—there in Syria—I say: if we do not establish the rules that the scholars themselves established for regulating speech, the speech becomes chaos without end. Someone might say: "The prince came," and then it turns out he meant the prince's servant came! How much is the difference between "the prince came" and "the prince's servant came"? Is it permissible for an Arab to say: "The prince came" while he means the prince's servant, and not place in his speech a context that makes the listener hear and draws the listener's attention to the fact that he means the servant, not the prince? And so I say to those who hold to the Sufi concept of the unity of existence: they have very dangerous words; they are explicit disbelief. Their followers from the Sufis strain themselves, and one says: "My brother, this speech appears to be correct disbelief, but it has a *ta'wil*! It has a precise, high meaning! You people of the apparent do not understand it!" We say to them: What is the meaning of the saying of one of them: "Everything you see with your eye is Allah"? Everything you see with your eye of creatures, there is no difference between the pure and the impure, between the good and the bad, it is Allah! And one of them says:
And the dog and the pig are nothing but our God *** And Allah is nothing but a monk in a church
They tell you: this speech has a second meaning. I say, in that case, I challenge you: bring any phrase, however deeply rooted in misguidance, and I will convert it for you in one moment to pure *tawhid* (the oneness of Allah). By what method? The method of *ta'wil*. I say, for example: "The priest created the heavens and the earth." Is there anything more disbelieving than this phrase? Take the omitted possessive and say: "The Lord of the priest." The phrase is complete: "The Lord of the priest created the heavens and the earth." Is this the rule that should be the basis for people understanding each other? No, the rule is that speech is reality, unless there is a context. The context is what indicates to us that this meaning is not intended. Here, in the examples we are discussing—and I feel that I may have been too long—they are not from the category of *majaz* (metaphor) and *haqiqah* (reality), because all these verses have only one meaning, and this one meaning is what comes to the mind of every Arab listener that the meaning is: ask the people of the village, ask the people of the caravan. "In our eyes" means in our observation and in our awareness, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.