Does it mean touching by the hand or sexual intercourse?
Does it mean touching by the hand or sexual intercourse? There are many other examples, including some cited below: ...Then He sat upon the Throne ....(7:54) ...Yet the Face of thy Lord abides ....(55:27) ...And I breathed in him (Adam) of My Spirit ... (15:29) ...God's hand is above their hands ...(48:10) ...And We shall set up the just balances for the Resurrection Day...(21:47) And thy Lord comes, and the angels rank on rank. (89:22) ...And they devised, and God devised ....
(3:54) There is some ambiguity or the other in all the above verses. Their proper understanding requires a comprehensive and expert knowledge of the Islamic sources and Qur'anic concepts, necessitating in particular reference to the Ahl al-Dhikr, the Household of Revelation, about whom the Glorious Qur'an says ... Question the People of the Remembrance, if you do not know.
(21:7) The Hidden Meanings of Qur'anic Verses Just as the Qur'an contains mutashabihat and mujmalat, it also contains hidden meanings. That is, besides the literal meanings of the words and their apparent, ordinary sense, other meanings and concepts underlie the same that are beyond the grasp of many.
Just as the mutashabihat and mujmalat cannot be understood without reference to the Ma'sumun (A), the grasp of what lies beyond the apparent meaning of Qur'anic words, too, cannot be attained without reference to the Household of the Revelation. Marhum `Allamah Majlisi, in his most precious book Bihar al'anwar (vol.92, p.78)has reported a hadith: Verily, the Qur'an came down on seven letters.
Every one of its verses has an exoteric and esoteric aspect, and every one of its letters has a hadd (lit. limit) and matla' (lit. beginning). In Hilyat al- awliya', Abu Nu'aym has quoted the above hadith in the following manner: Verily, the Qur'an has come down on seven letters. Every one of its letters has an exoteric and esoteric aspect, and every verse is with 'Ali (A).
Al-'Imam al-Sajjid (A) says: ...The Book of God is constituted of four things: `ibarah (diction, text), isharah (indication), lata'if (subtleties) and haqa'iq (realities). The `ibarah isfor the common people, isharah is for the elect, lata'if are for the awliya' and haqa'iq for the prophets. (Bihar al-'anwar, vo1.92, p.20) Al-'Imam al-Baqir (A) says: The Qur'an has a batn (inward or esoteric aspect) and that batn (in turn) has a batn.
And it has 'a zahr (outward or exoteric aspect) and the zahr has a zahr ...