and al-Qādī Abū Bakr, Abū al-Hasan al-Tamīmī, Ibn al-Zāghūnī, and others like them who hold that Allah is above the Throne and is not a body.

These philosophizers say, as do these speculative theologians who affirm the divine attributes, that affirming that Allah is above does not entail affirming that He is a body, or even that He occupies a place. They base this on the definition of place as the inner surface of an enclosing body that touches the outer surface of the enclosed body. This is the view of Aristotle and his followers.

They therefore say that a person’s place is the inner surface of the air surrounding him, and that every inner surface of the celestial spheres is a place for the outer surfaces in contact with it.

It is well known that beyond bodies there is no inner surface of a body enclosing anything. Thus, according to their terminology, there is no place there; for if anything there were enclosed by the surface of a body, what enclosed it would itself be a body. If that is so, whatever exists there would neither occupy a place nor be a body.

Hence his statement:

“If, then, demonstration establishes the existence of something in this direction, it must not be a body. What cannot exist there is a body, not something that is not a body.”