in which he continually vacillates between negation and affirmation. How, then, can he insist that there must be empty spatial regions and vacant directions above the Lord of the worlds?

Here an analogy can be drawn for them from their own selves, as when debating someone who claims that Allah has a partner from among His creation, or a child the like of whom he would not accept for himself. He may be told: In your view, a created being that occupies space need not have empty spatial regions and vacant directions above it. Why, then, do you insist that the Creator of the world must have empty spatial regions and vacant directions above Him if He is described as being above the Throne and as occupying space?

As for his statement that He is able to create a body in the empty spatial region, so that this body would be above Him, the reply is: This rests on the assumption that something can be above Him. Unless that possibility is established, it cannot rightly be said that He is able to create a body above Him, just as it cannot rightly be said that He is able to create a body before Him or after Him. Your opponent may say to you: If He must necessarily be the Most High, the Highest, the Supremely Exalted, above whom there is nothing, then nothing can be above Him; just as, if He must necessarily be the First and