ʿAbbās that, concerning the word istawā—he explained it as qaʿada (sat) (1)?”
He replied, “Yes.”
I said to him, “Ishāq ibn Rāhūyah says that only someone who grows tired of standing is described as sitting.”
He answered, “I have no idea what Ishāq is saying.”
I also heard him remark, “Ibn Khuzaymah erred in the ḥadīth of the image (ḥadīth al-ṣūrah), yet one should not impugn him on that account; rather, one simply does not take this particular point from him.”
Abū Mūsā commented, “By this he was indicating that hardly an imam exists without some lapse; were a scholar to be abandoned for a single slip, many of the leading imams would have to be abandoned—and that is not fitting.”
Abū Masʿūd ʿAbd al-Raḥīm reported: “We used to go with Abū ’l-Qāsim to certain shrines, and whenever we awoke in the night we would find him standing in prayer.”
Abū Mūsā also noted, regarding the lineage of Abū ’l-Qāsim al-Taymī al-Ṭalḥī, that it comes to him through his mother, adding, “The sister’s son of a people is counted as one of them.”
(1) The attribution of the wording in question to Ibn Abbas is not firmly established. Muhyi al-Sunnah al-Baghawi, in his Qurʾanic commentary, as well as the majority of exegetes, transmit that the expression means: irtafaʿa (He rose). Ibn Kathir, commenting on the verse “thumma istawa ʿala al-ʿarsh” (then He rose over the Throne) in Surat al-Aʿraf, 7:54, writes: “On this point people have expressed a great many opinions that need not be detailed here. The path to follow is that of the pious predecessors—Malik, al-Awzaʿi, al-Thawri, al-Layth b. Saʿd, al-Shafiʿi, Ahmad b. Hanbal, Ishaq b. Rahawayh and others, among the leading scholars of early and later times—namely, to let the text stand as it has come, without asking how (takyif), without likening God to His creation (tashbih), and without denying the attribute (taʿtil). Whatever meaning first occurs to the minds of those inclined to anthropomorphism is rejected, for nothing resembles God: “laysa kamithlihi shayʾ wa-huwa al-samiʿ al-basir” (There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing). As the imams have said—among them Nuʿaym b. Hammad al-Khuzaʿi, the teacher of al-Bukhari—‘Whoever likens God to His creation has committed unbelief, and whoever denies what God has attributed to Himself has likewise committed unbelief.’
There is no anthropomorphism in what God or His Messenger have attributed to Him. Whoever affirms, for God Most High, that which the unequivocal verses and sound reports convey—befitting His majesty—while negating all imperfection from Him, has taken the path of guidance.
See further: Fath al-Bari, vol. 13, pp. 405–408 (Salafi edition).