outside it. Since, according to your statement, He is not anything, it is impossible for Him to be as one thing is within another or outside another. By my life, you have described something obscure that has no existence. Such is your religion, and the foundation of your doctrine is negation.’”

These words of Abd al-Azīz make clear that rational analogy requires that whatever is neither within a thing nor outside it is not anything; that this description entails that whatever is neither within a thing nor outside it is not anything; and that this is the description of the nonexistent, which has no existence.

Here, “analogy” means rational analogical arguments, and “reason” means necessary knowledge. This Abd al-Azīz lived before the emergence of the Hanbalīs and the Karrāmīs, as previously explained.

Abū Muhammad Abd Allāh ibn Saʿīd ibn Kullāb, the leading authority followed by al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī, Abū al-Abbās al-Qalānisī, al-Ashʿarī, and others like them, also spoke on this. Among those who related this from him was Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak, in his compilation of Ibn Kullāb’s statements. He collected some of his statements and also compiled al-Ashʿarī’s statements, showing their agreement on most of their fundamental principles.

[Ibn Kullāb’s Words on the Question of Allah’s Being Above]

Ibn Kullāb said:

“Outside the bounds of rational inquiry and transmitted reports stands the claim of one who says, ‘He is neither within the world nor outside it.’ He has negated Him altogether. For if he were told, ‘Describe Him as nonexistent,’ he could say no more about Him than this. He has rejected Allah’s explicit reports and said concerning this what neither transmitted reports nor reason can admit. He claims that this is pure monotheism. To them, pure negation is pure affirmation, yet they consider themselves practitioners of analogy.”

He said:

“If they say, ‘This is an explicit acknowledgment on your part that places are devoid of Him, and of the exclusivity of