I heard ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Shaqīq say: “I asked ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, ‘How is our Lord to be known?’
He answered, ‘He is in the heavens, upon the Throne.’
I said to him, ‘But the Jahmites say that as well.’
He replied, ‘We do not speak as the Jahmites do; they claim that He is with us here on earth.’
I said, ‘The Jahmites contend that the Creator—exalted be He—is in every place, whereas the early scholars say that the knowledge of the Creator is in every place. They cite His words, “And He is with you wherever you are” (al-Ḥadīd 4), meaning: by His knowledge. They also affirm that He rose over His Throne, exactly as the Quran and the Sunnah state.’
Al-Awzāʿī—who was the leading authority of his time—said, ‘We, and the large company of the Successors, used to say: Allah, exalted is He, is above His Throne, and we believe in the attributes that have come down in the Sunnah.’ It is well known among the scholars of all schools that the creed of the Salaf is to let the verses and hadiths concerning the divine attributes pass as they are, without figurative interpretation, distortion, likening, or speculating about how; for discourse on the attributes is subsidiary to discourse on the sacred Essence.
Muslims know that the Essence of the Creator truly exists with no likeness whatsoever, and likewise His attributes—exalted is He—truly exist with no likeness whatsoever.
Yahyā ibn Abī Manṣūr the jurist informed us by authorization; ʿAbd al-Qādir the ḥāfiẓ informed us; Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr in Isfahān informed us; Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Malik informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shabīb informed us; Abū ʿUmar al-Sulamī informed us; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Lubnānī informed us; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal narrated to us in his book The Refutation of the Jahmiyyah (1), saying: ‘Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm narrated to me…’