That is to say: “You know what is with me, whereas I do not know what is with You,” just as He, exalted be He, says: “And with Him are the keys to the unseen” (6:59). A speaker might similarly say, “I have knowledge of that.”

Such a reading is one of the far-fetched interpretations to which they are driven—though Allah knows best the meaning He intended. Yet the very word “with” (ʿinda) in Arabic conveys nearness, while they contend that Allah is no nearer to one thing than to another and that His being established upon the Throne is, in reality, no different from His being on earth. How astonishing that a people who will accept only what appears rational should abandon every dictate of reason and say: “Allah is in every place, without contact or separation, without conformity or disjunction.”

Umayyah, describing Moses’ closeness to Allah when He spoke to him, said:

He is the closest of mankind to God,
As close as the weft is to the loom.

He means: as the thread of the cloth lies next to the wooden beam on which the cloth is woven. Allah says: “We brought him near for confidential discourse” (19:52). The word najiyy denotes one who converses intimately—someone who speaks to you from nearby—just as jalīs is one who sits with you and akīl one who eats with you. Likewise, “the Interlocutor of Allah” (Kalīm Allah) means the one whom Allah addressed directly, and “the Friend of Allah” (Khalīl Allah) means the one whom Allah befriended. Allah also says: “when they withdrew apart to converse in secret” (17:47).

Abū Zubayd, portraying a man who wrestled with a lion, said:

A whirlwind and tumult rose about him—
Close in combat, with not a soul between them.

meaning that each was brought face-to-face with the other.

Refutation of those who reinterpret the Throne

They have sought for the Throne (al-ʿArsh) a meaning other than “throne,” whereas the scholars of the Arabic language recognize for al-ʿArsh no meaning save “throne,” or anything raised aloft such as a roof and the like.

Umayyah ibn Abī al-Ṣalt said: