that Allah is above the Throne. They all agree on describing Him in this way and on condemning the Jahmiyyah who deny it; there is no disagreement among them concerning this. No one can transmit a single word contradicting this from any of the early generations of the Muslim community or its imams in the first three generations. They never expressed, either explicitly or through the apparent meaning of their words, any of the negations uttered by those who deny that He is above the Throne: “Allah is not in heaven”; “Allah is not above the Throne”; “He is neither inside the world nor outside it”; “All places stand in the same relation to Him”; “He is everywhere”; “He is in no place”; “He cannot be pointed to”; or other such expressions. Rather, they are unanimous in affirming that He Himself is above the Throne and in condemning those who deny this more severely than they condemn other adherents of innovation, such as the Qadariyyah, the Khawārij, the Rāfidah and others like them.

Since this is so, let it be known that al-Rāzī and others like him who deny that Allah Himself is above the world oppose all the early generations of the Muslim community and its imams who are held in honour within it. They also oppose the general body of those who affirm the divine attributes among the jurists, hadith scholars, Sufis and theologians, such as the Karrāmiyyah, the Kullābiyyah and the Ashʿariyyah, who are