a thing and surrounds it. In ordinary language, this is understood to mean that there is an existing thing that encloses another.

There is no doubt that the Creator is distinct from created things and above them, as the divine texts indicate and as the early generations and the leading scholars agreed. Allah Most High has also instilled this recognition in His creatures’ innate disposition, and rational proofs establish it.

Since this is so, and nothing exists except the Creator and what is created, there is nothing existing beyond created things that could enclose Allah Most High. Thus, He cannot be described as occupying space in this sense.

They may, however, use “space” to mean something nonexistent, such that they describe the world as occupying space even though it is not within any other existing thing outside the world. In that case, describing Him as occupying space in this sense means that He is in a nonexistent space. Nonexistence is not a thing, and His being in what is not a thing amounts to no more than His being alone, with no other existent alongside Him, apart from creation, distinct and separate from it, His essence not mingled with the essence of any created being.

If, then, “occupying space” is intended to mean being distinct from something else—and the texts indicate that Allah Most High is above creation, separate from it and not mingled with it—then they establish this meaning. Thus, the Quran has indicated all the meanings debated by