Nor does His saying, “and He is with you” (1) mean that He is commingled with the creation. The Arabic language does not warrant such an understanding, it contradicts the unanimous position of the early generations of this umma, and it runs counter to the innate disposition upon which Allah has fashioned His creatures. Take the moon—one of Allah’s signs, among the smallest of His creations: it is fixed in the sky, yet it accompanies the traveller (2) wherever he may be. Allah, exalted be He, is above the Throne, overseeing His servants, exercising His dominion over them, witnessing them—these and other meanings all belong to His lordship.
All of the statements Allah Himself has mentioned—His being above the Throne and His being with us—are true in their real sense; they need no distortion (3). Rather, they are to be safeguarded from false imaginings.
[The first question] (4) Some of them said, “We affirm the exact wording that has been transmitted, such as the hadith [Q 81] of al-ʿAbbās, the hadith of the mountain goats: ‘Allah is above the Throne.’ (6) We do not say, ‘above the heavens,’ nor do we say, ‘upon the Throne.’ They also said: We say ‘upon (7) the Throne…’