make its upper part dependent upon its lower part. The air is above the earth yet has no need for the earth to carry it; the clouds likewise hover above the earth without requiring it to bear them; and the heavens themselves are above the earth and are in no way reliant on it for support. How, then, could the Most High, the Supreme—Lord and Sovereign of everything—when He is above all of His creation, be in need of His creatures or of His Throne? How could His exaltedness over His creation entail any dependence, when such dependence is not entailed even among created things? Indeed, whenever independence from others is affirmed for a creature, the Creator—glorified be He—is even more deserving of perfect independence.

[The Attribute of Exaltation]

The same understanding applies to His words: “Do you feel secure that He who is in the heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up, whereupon it will quake?” (67:16). Anyone who imagines that this verse implies that Allah is contained within the heavens is, by unanimous agreement, an ignorant deviant. It is true that when we say, “the sun and the moon are in the sky,” the phrase does suggest being inside; yet the preposition in takes its meaning from both the word that precedes it and the word that follows it, and its sense shifts according to the two terms it connects.