Al-Ash‘arī said:

“We profess all the views we have related from them, and hold to them.”

[Statements of the People of the Sunnah: Abū ‘Uthmān al-Sābūnī in His Treatise]

Abū ‘Uthmān Ismā‘īl al-Sābūnī, known as Shaykh al-Islām, said in his well-known treatise on the Sunnah, as quoted by Abū al-Qāsim al-Tamīmī in his book al-Hujjah fī Bayān al-Mahajjah (The Proof in Clarifying the Path):

“The people of hadith affirm that the Lord, glorified and exalted is He, descends every night to the lowest heaven, without likening His descent to that of created beings, asserting any resemblance, or specifying how it occurs. Rather, they affirm for Him what the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, affirmed, and confine themselves to what he conveyed concerning it. They accept the authentic report mentioning it according to its apparent meaning and entrust knowledge of it to Allah Most High. Likewise, they affirm what Allah has revealed in His Book concerning His coming and arriving amid canopies of clouds, together with the angels, and His words, mighty and majestic is He:

‘And your Lord comes, and the angels, rank upon rank.’
(al-Fajr: 22).”

He also said:

“I heard al-Hākim Abū ‘Abd Allāh, the hadith master, say: I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Tālib say: I heard Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ahmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ribātī say: One day I attended the gathering of the emir ‘Abd Allāh ibn Tāhir