corrupt notion and therefore cannot be what is meant.
We reply:
First: this report is narrated from the Prophet ﷺ with a chain of transmission that does not stand; the more common wording traces it only to Ibn ʿAbbās. Ibn al-Jawzī said, “This ḥadīth is not sound,” and Ibn al-ʿArabī declared, “It is a forged report; no attention should be paid to it.”
Second: even supposing it were authentic, it plainly shows that the Black Stone is not itself the Right Hand of Allah, for the Prophet said, “the Right Hand of Allah on earth,” restricting it to “on earth” rather than leaving it unqualified. A qualified expression is governed differently from an absolute one, and it is well known that Allah is above the heavens. Moreover, the report continues, “Whoever shakes hands with it and kisses it, it is as though he has shaken hands with Allah and kissed His Right Hand,” and everyone understands that the thing compared is not identical to what it is compared with.
Thus the report is explicit: the one who touches the Stone is not literally shaking hands with Allah, nor is the Stone itself Allah’s Right Hand. How, then, can its outward sense be branded disbelief requiring interpretation?
The second error is when they explain a word with a meaning that is in fact correct and accords with its outward sense, yet they still reject it, believing it to be false when it is not.
A case in point is Allah’s statement, “The Most Compassionate rose over the Throne” (Taha 5).
They say, “The apparent meaning of the verse is that Allah ascended over the Throne, and because the Throne is finite it would follow that Allah is finite; this is a corrupt idea and therefore cannot be intended.”
We respond: Allah’s being above His Throne—even though the Throne itself is finite—entails no corrupt meaning whatsoever. Allah has risen over His Throne in a manner befitting His majesty and greatness, utterly unlike a creature’s rising over another creature. It does not necessitate that Allah be finite. His rising is unique to the Throne, and the Throne is the highest of created things, so Allah—