Section Seven (1)
Compelling them to accept, in the very meaning they adopted as “reinterpretation,” the same consequence from which they tried to flee

This is an exquisite section for anyone who reflects upon it. It shows that the proponents of figurative interpretation have gained nothing from their efforts except the negation of the actual purport of the texts, the manipulation of those texts, and a violation of their sanctity. They have not escaped the peril they imagined; rather, that peril clings to them in the position to which they fled just as much as it did in the position from which they fled. Indeed, they may (2) fall into an even graver danger—for example, those who re-read (3) the verses and reports affirming Allah’s exaltation, loftiness, and istiwāʾ (His rising over the Throne) in order to avoid attributing to Him spatial confinement, only to declare, “He is in every place in His very essence.” Thus they denied His rising over the Throne and His being distinct from His creation, but placed Him inside houses, wells, vessels, and locations (4) whose mention is repulsive. These were the early Jahmiyya. When their later followers realized the absurdity of that claim, they said: “Beyond the universe and above the Throne there is nothing but sheer non-existence; no Lord is worshipped there, no God is prayed to (5) or prostrated to—and He is not within the universe either.” Consequently, they made His relation to the Throne the same as His relation to the vilest places. Highly exalted is Allah above what they say.

The same error was committed by those who denied the pre-existent decree, imagining they were exalting Allah above willing or creating reprehensible acts. They ended up attributing to Him the presence, within His dominion, of what He does not will and the absence of what He does will, and claiming that He lacks the power to guide the stray, to misguide the rightly guided, or to turn the sinner’s heart to—