—“He is in a ‘direction’—that is, in the sense that He Himself is above everything.” This is a sound meaning.
Yet whoever negates this meaning by saying, “He is not in a direction,” has erred.
Rather, the path of safety is that whatever the messengers have affirmed for Allah is to be affirmed for Him, and whatever the messengers have negated concerning Allah is to be negated of Him.
As for expressions the messengers neither affirmed nor denied—such as the terms “direction,” “place,” and the like—one should refrain from affirming or denying them until the intended sense is made clear.
Thus, whoever intends by his affirmation a correct meaning has hit the mark in meaning, even if his wording is mistaken; and whoever intends by his negation a correct meaning has likewise hit the mark in meaning, even if his wording is mistaken.
But anyone who, in his wording, affirms both truth and falsehood, or denies both truth and falsehood, is correct in what he meant of the truth and mistaken in what he meant of the falsehood—he has blended truth with falsehood and combined them in his discourse.
All the prophets are unanimous that He is on high.
In the Quran and the Sunnah there are close to a thousand proofs of this, and in the words of the earlier prophets there are proofs beyond count.