nor beneath it, nor behind it, nor before it—on the strength of His words, “Say: He is Allah, One” [al-Ikhlas: 1] and His words, “Nothing is like unto Him” [al-Shura: 9].

The Prophet ﷺ, they contend, wished to convey this very meaning to his nation when he said, “Do not give me precedence over Yunus ibn Mattā” (1).

He likewise intended to make them understand that He created Adam by His power and will when He said, “What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with My two hands?” [Sad: 74].

He sought to impress upon them the demolition of the heavens and the earth and their return to non-existence with his statement, “Allah will grasp His heavens in His right hand and the earth in the other hand, then He will shake them and proclaim, ‘I am the King’” (2).

And he meant to explain the sense of the questions ‘Who is your Lord?’ and ‘Whom do you worship?’ by asking, “Where is Allah?” (3). He pointed upward with his finger, calling upon his Lord as witness (4), even though—under that interpretation—there is no Lord and no deity there at all. Rather, his purpose, they say, was only to let the listeners know that Allah had heard his words and theirs, and by that gesture with his finger he wished merely to show that He had heard what they said.