where He says: ‘And pray for them; indeed, your prayer is a source of reassurance for them.’ 1 It is authentically reported from Abdullah ibn Abī Awfā: ‘Whenever people brought their alms to the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—he would invoke blessings upon them. My father brought him his alms, so he said, “O Allah, bless the family of Abū Awfā.”’ 2 Allah Most High also says: ‘O you who believe, invoke blessings upon him and greet him with complete greetings of peace.’ 3 In several hadiths recorded in the Sahih collections and elsewhere, the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—taught his community how to invoke blessings upon him. In every one of them, he merely taught them to supplicate that Allah bestow His blessings and benedictions upon him…”—and so on, to the end of his words, may Allah have mercy on him.4

He mentioned this while refuting those who deny that Allah is above His creation, such as the Jahmiyyah and those followers of deviant desires who were influenced by them. They claim that raising one’s hands upward in supplication is prescribed only because heaven is the qibla of supplication, just as the Kaaba is the qibla of prayer. They thereby assigned the Muslims two qiblas: heaven as the qibla of supplication and the Kaaba as the qibla of prayer. What drove them to this false assertion was their denial that the Lord—Mighty and Majestic—is above His creation, along with their strained attempts to construe the many texts proving that Allah is above creation contrary to their proper sense and intended meaning, through various interpretations and forms of distortion. In reality, these amount to a kind of deviation concerning Allah’s signs, Names, and Attributes. Allah says: ‘Leave those who deviate concerning His Names; they will be requited for what they used to do.’ 5 He also says: ‘Indeed, those who deviate concerning Our signs are not hidden