As for the substantive issue:
With respect to the verse, “al-Raḥmān ʿalā al-ʿarsh istawā” — “The Most Merciful rose over the Throne” (1) — and other texts of the same import, three approaches are conceivable:
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To claim that His istiwāʾ is like the istiwāʾ of a created being, or to interpret it in a way that necessarily (2) entails origination or deficiency. This is the view ascribed to the misguided anthropomorphists and corporealists; it is decisively invalidated by both the Quran and sound reason.
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To say that no real istiwāʾ exists at all, that there is no deity upon the Throne, and that no Lord is above the heavens. This (3) is the creed of the deviant Jahmiyyah who negate the attributes. It is categorically false, refuted by what is necessarily known of Islam to anyone versed in the Prophetic sciences, and by the innate disposition with which Allah created mankind: their acknowledgment that He is above His creation just as they acknowledge that He is their Lord.
Ibn Qutaybah (4) remarked: “All nations—Arabs and non-Arabs alike, in their pre-Islamic days and after Islam—have continually affirmed that Allah is in the heaven,” that is, above the heaven.
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To affirm instead that He—glorified be He—rose over the Throne in a manner befitting His majesty and consonant with His grandeur; that He is above His heavens, upon His Throne, distinct from His creation, while He—exalted is He—upholds the Throne and those who bear it. The istiwāʾ is known, its modality is unknown; believing in it is obligatory, and inquiring about its how-ness is an innovation, as was declared by (5) Umm Salamah, Rabīʿah ibn Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Mālik ibn