Back to search

Do you understand the noble verse: "before His mercy" to mean that mercy has two actual hands, by analogy with what is mentioned in other texts that affirm two hands for Allah Almighty?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The attributes of Allah Almighty must be affirmed without allegorical interpretation (ta'wil) or anthropomorphism (tamthil), because allegorical interpretation is an innovation not transmitted from the Salaf (pious predecessors) and is based on the premise that the apparent meaning is impossible, which is misguidance. Interpreting "hand" (yad) as mercy or power is false because it would necessitate that Allah has two mercies or two powers, which contradicts scholarly consensus. The dual form "hands" (yadain) is used in Arabic with a specific usage in the phrase "between the hands of such-and-such" (baina yaday kadha), which means "in front of it," and does not refer to a limb, power, or blessing. Rather, it is a special idiom denoting a specific meaning.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

Read the full answer on Ftawy