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Full-version-Shefa-bio-of-Prophet, page : 124
It should be understood that 'drawing near' and 'nearness to' or 'from Allah' is not comparable to a nearness of place or even proximity in space, or human dimensions.
The drawing near to his Lord of our beloved Prophet and his nearness to Him is apparent on account of his honorable rank, the splendor of the lights, his witnessing of the secrets of the unseen world of Allah, coupled to His power and that kindness, coolness and generosity came to him from Allah.
With regard to the Prophet's words, "Our Lord (metaphorically) descends to the nearest heaven", this should be viewed by interpretation, because an aspect of descent is that of granting favors, subtleness, acceptance and kindliness.
In the part of the verse which reads, "Two bows' length or nearer." The consensus of scholars is that it refers to Gabriel, meaning, the Prophet physically close to Gabriel. (Lesser scholars say it refers to Allah, however, their interpretation is based on the understanding of the Divine Hadith in which Allah says, "Whosoever comes close to Me by the span of a hand, I come close to him an arm's length" which means these scholars negated physical distance and directions by giving this example.)
Abbas' hadith means that the Prophet saw Allah with the eye of Paradise.
As for the Companions, they were convinced by the statement of Allah that He is unlike any of His Creation. It did not entered their head for a moment that Allah has body parts comparable to that of a human, nor did they try to interpret His Divine Hadith because His description is beyond the comprehension of any human. The only similarity is the pronouncing of the words but not its meaning.
In later centuries when scholars were confronted by different civilizations in which their deities were subject to dimension, time, location and other earthly attributes, Muslim scholars did not waver in their belief that there is nothing like Allah, neither did they go into fine details, but when the situation needed to be addressed they would briefly alluded to such matters as being His attributes such as His Power, Mercy, Kindliness and such like.
There is no contradiction between the statements of Lady Ayesha and Abbas' son. Lady Ayesha was addressing the fact that the Prophet did not see Allah in a place and direction, whereas Abbas' son was referring to the Prophet sighting of Him through the eye of Paradise.
In conclusion, there are two schools of thought, one is the early generation - that is the Companions, their followers and their immediate followers (Tabien and Tabi Tabien) - who read it and reserved the meaning for Allah and did not question it. Whereas the following generation (Khalaf) interpreted it in keeping with the purity of the Koran and Hadith in order to spread Islam among those who had yet to hear about it.
The drawing near to his Lord of our beloved Prophet and his nearness to Him is apparent on account of his honorable rank, the splendor of the lights, his witnessing of the secrets of the unseen world of Allah, coupled to His power and that kindness, coolness and generosity came to him from Allah.
With regard to the Prophet's words, "Our Lord (metaphorically) descends to the nearest heaven", this should be viewed by interpretation, because an aspect of descent is that of granting favors, subtleness, acceptance and kindliness.
In the part of the verse which reads, "Two bows' length or nearer." The consensus of scholars is that it refers to Gabriel, meaning, the Prophet physically close to Gabriel. (Lesser scholars say it refers to Allah, however, their interpretation is based on the understanding of the Divine Hadith in which Allah says, "Whosoever comes close to Me by the span of a hand, I come close to him an arm's length" which means these scholars negated physical distance and directions by giving this example.)
Abbas' hadith means that the Prophet saw Allah with the eye of Paradise.
As for the Companions, they were convinced by the statement of Allah that He is unlike any of His Creation. It did not entered their head for a moment that Allah has body parts comparable to that of a human, nor did they try to interpret His Divine Hadith because His description is beyond the comprehension of any human. The only similarity is the pronouncing of the words but not its meaning.
In later centuries when scholars were confronted by different civilizations in which their deities were subject to dimension, time, location and other earthly attributes, Muslim scholars did not waver in their belief that there is nothing like Allah, neither did they go into fine details, but when the situation needed to be addressed they would briefly alluded to such matters as being His attributes such as His Power, Mercy, Kindliness and such like.
There is no contradiction between the statements of Lady Ayesha and Abbas' son. Lady Ayesha was addressing the fact that the Prophet did not see Allah in a place and direction, whereas Abbas' son was referring to the Prophet sighting of Him through the eye of Paradise.
In conclusion, there are two schools of thought, one is the early generation - that is the Companions, their followers and their immediate followers (Tabien and Tabi Tabien) - who read it and reserved the meaning for Allah and did not question it. Whereas the following generation (Khalaf) interpreted it in keeping with the purity of the Koran and Hadith in order to spread Islam among those who had yet to hear about it.