occur only after its creation. Even if the world or the Throne were assumed to have been created in another region of space, Allah, glorified and exalted be He, would be above it and risen over it wherever it was created. Likewise, when He is with His servant through His knowledge and power, or His help and support, and so forth, wherever the servant is, he is with Allah.

That being so, no region of space has an intrinsic reality distinguishing it from another that would make it deserving of Allah’s being in it. Rather, the necessity of His being in a particular region follows from the necessity of His being above and His rising over the Throne. His being above His Throne and rising over it preclude His not being above it. Thus, any supposed position below, to the left, or the like that is incompatible with being above is ruled out, because one of two contradictories excludes the other—not because one region possesses an attribute that the other lacks.

The eighth point concerns his statement: “If they did not differ in their realities and essences, it would be impossible to affirm that He, the Exalted, must be in the direction above.”

The reply is: We do not concede this. He has offered no proof for it, so a simple refusal to concede suffices to answer this claim. Furthermore, the fact that something must be above another, rather than to its right or left, may be due to a feature of the higher thing, a feature of the lower thing, or a feature of both. The same applies to every matter involving a relation between two things