The reply is as follows:

Knowing this to be false is no more evident than knowing the falsity of the claim that He exists, subsists in Himself, and is the Maker of the entire world, yet is neither within the world nor outside it, neither inhering in it nor separate from it—especially when it is also said that He is living, knowing, and powerful, yet has neither life, knowledge, nor power.

Or it is said that He is the one who understands, the object of understanding, and intellect itself; the lover, the beloved, and love itself; that knowledge and love are identical with the one who knows and loves; and that love itself is knowledge itself.

Or it is also said that He is living through life, knowing through knowledge, powerful through power, hearing and hears, seeing and sees, and speaking through speech; yet He is neither within His creatures nor outside them, neither inhering in them nor separate from them. It is further said that His willing of this willed object and His very seeing of this are identical with His very seeing of this; that His very knowledge of this is identical with His very knowledge of this; and that speech is one and the same meaning, so that the meaning of the Throne Verse, the Verse of Debt, the rest of the Quran, the Torah, the Gospel, and everything else He has spoken is one thing.

If these statements can possibly be true according to reason, then the claim that He is above the Throne but is not a body, or that He is a body but is indivisible, is more readily acceptable to reason.

If it is said, instead, “This claim is rationally false,” the reply is: “Those claims are even more clearly false according to reason; and whenever those are invalidated, this claim is established.”

And if it is said that what rules out the possibility of those things is imagination (wahm), not reason,