without specifying how. He is in every created place through His knowledge, not His Essence, for places cannot contain Him: He is greater than they are. He existed when there was no place, and His attributes have not changed from what they were, for changes of state do not apply to Him. Yet His exaltedness in His rising over His Throne is, in our understanding, unlike what it was before He rose over the Throne, because He said:

“Then He rose over the Throne.”

[Al-Aʿrāf: 54]

The word “then” can only ever mark the commencement of an act separated from what preceded it by an interval. Although He, glorified be He, neither moves nor changes, He may remove the created things beneath Him and alter them however He wills. Thus, through His being over His Throne, He is, in our description, unlike what He was before that. This is the judgment conveyed by our description of His rising over His Throne, glorified be He. A distinction is thus made between His Essence and His knowledge in the overall judgment and meaning: no place lies outside His knowledge, while He is separate from all places in His Essence, although He encompasses them all in His greatness and majesty.”

Further on, he said:

“As for His words, ‘He rose over the Throne (5)’ [Tā Hā: 5], their meaning according to the People of the Sunnah is other than gaining mastery, subjugation, domination, or sovereignty, which the Muʿtazilah and those who agree with them have supposed to be the meaning of rising over. Some of them say that it is figurative rather than literal. And what makes clear