And the Exalted said: “And Allah spoke to Moses with [direct] speech,” and the verbal noun (al-masdar) provides emphasis that the speech occurred orally and directly between the Speaker (al-mukhātib)—with a kasrah under the tā’—who is Allah and the strange, wondrous thing is from those among you who say and believe that Allah, Glory be to Him, manifested and spoke from the tree and the fire—alongside their statement and belief in the materiality of them both—yet they deny His manifestation and His speech from a human form, despite their conviction that man is the vicegerent (khalifah) of Allah on the earth, by evidence of His saying, the Exalted:[“And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, 'Indeed, I will make upon the earth a vicegerent.' They said, 'Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood,

while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?' He said, 'Indeed, I know that which you do not know.'”] ¹ , and that he is the most excellent of natural entities, by evidence of His saying, the Exalted: [“And We have certainly honored the children of Adam and carried them on land and sea and provided for them of the good things and preferred them over much of what We have created in a [marked] preference.”] ² , and that he is an intermediary world between the world of the angels and the world of animals; he shares with the former his rationality, and with the latter his physicality. This is despite knowing that this manifestation in the human form was neither incarnation (hulul), nor unification (ittihad), nor material anthropomorphism (tajsim madi); rather, it was a manifestation of form (taswiran)—yet not an imaginary one—to establish existence, realize direct witnessing, affirm the proof, and clarify the straight path.