[Section: The Position of the Early Generations and Leading Scholars on Allah’s Being Above Creation and Separate from It]

These and similar statements by leading figures in speculative theology and philosophy on this subject show the error of those who portray this dispute as being solely with the Karrāmiyyah and the Hanbalīs. They also show that most groups of rational thinkers affirm Allah’s being above creation and hold it impossible for an existent being to be neither within the world nor outside it.

As for the statements of those who have reported the position of the early generations and leading scholars, they are too numerous to set down.

[The Statement of Abū Nasr al-Sijzī in His Book al-Ibānah]

Shaykh Abū Nasr al-Sijzī said in his book al-Ibānah (The Clarification):

“Our leading scholars—such as Sufyān al-Thawrī, Mālik, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Hammād ibn Salāmah, Hammād ibn Zayd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Fudayl ibn ʿIyād, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and Ishāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Hanzalī—agree that Allah, glorified is He, is Himself above the Throne; that His knowledge encompasses every place; that He will be seen with the eyes on the Day of Resurrection, above the Throne; that He descends to the lowest heaven; that He becomes angry and is pleased; and that He speaks whatever He wills. Whoever opposes any of this has no association with them, and they have no association with him.”

This Abū Nasr resided in Mecca during the fifth century AH.

[The Statement of Abū ʿUmar al-Talamankī in al-Wusūl ilā Maʿrifat al-Usūl]

Before him, Shaykh Abū ʿUmar al-Talamankī, the Mālikī scholar and one of the leading scholars of his time in al-Andalus, said in his book al-Wusūl ilā Maʿrifat al-Usūl (Attaining Knowledge of the Fundamentals):

“And there was unanimous agreement