He encompasses all things and is above them, and He has made it impossible for His creatures to encompass Him.

We therefore state—out of faith, affirmation, and complete submission—that Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend and that Allah spoke to Moses directly.

All created beings depend on Him, by His power and might, whereas He is absolutely independent of them.

The mere fact that one thing is above another does not mean that the higher is in need of what lies beneath; the heavens are above the earth, yet they have no need of the earth.

He encompasses everything: “Nothing in the earth or in the heaven is hidden from Allah” (Āl ʿImrān 3:5). His encompassing the creation refers to His knowledge of it, while He Himself is in the exalted direction—above.

Allah knows what lies before them and what is behind them, and they cannot encompass Him in knowledge. He says: “They grasp nothing of His knowledge save what He wills. His Footstool extends over the heavens and the earth” (Al-Baqarah 2:255). Thus Allah encompasses all things in knowledge: “so that you may know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in knowledge” (At-Ṭalāq 65:12).

It is a point of Muslim belief that the messengers are the best of creation and that they vary in rank. They hold that Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend—“Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend” (An-Nisāʾ 4:125)—and that khulla (intimate friendship) is the highest degree of love. Allah, Majestic and Exalted, loves His believing, God-fearing servants.