existent and at another nonexistent. For if He was alone in eternity past, nothing existent was with Him, much less was He within anything existent.

Then, when He created the world, He must either have been interpenetrating the world or separate from it. If it is impossible for Him Himself to be inside the world, or for the world to enter into Him, then He must be separate from it. If He is separate from the world, it is possible for Him to be above it, and for what is then called a place to be something existent. It does not follow that this place must always accompany Him. Thus, neither the beginninglessness of created things nor His dependence upon any of them follows. Rather, He was independent of them and has never ceased to be independent of them, even though He is above them.

His being above the Throne and above other created things does not entail His dependence upon them. The sky is above the earth but does not depend upon it; the air is above the earth but does not depend upon it; likewise, the angels are above the earth but do not depend upon it. If a created being that is above something need not depend upon what is below it, then the Exalted, the Most High—Creator of everything and independent of everything—is all the more free of dependence upon created things, despite being above them.

[The second response]

The statement “He is in every place” is ambiguous and misleading.

Those who affirm that Allah is above His creation need not state without qualification that He is in a place. Indeed, many of them do not use this expression at all; rather, they disallow it because of its ambiguity.

If someone says, “If He were in a place, that place would necessarily be either existent or nonexistent,” he may be told:

“If something is said to be in a place, and that place is understood to be nonexistent,