that is straight—the path of those He has blessed among the prophets, the steadfastly truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous. What excellent companions they are!

The authentic hadith states:

“You are the Manifest, and nothing is above You; You are the Hidden, and nothing is below You.”

To explain these words: it is well known that “above” and “below” belong to the class of nouns grammarians call adverbs of place, because their wording denotes place in the linguistic sense. The meaning of “above” is clear, and it is relative to what it refers to. Something’s being above does not preclude its being beneath something else; nor does there being nothing above it preclude there being something beneath it.

Thus, the words “You are the Manifest, and nothing is above You” deny that anything is above Allah. This entails that He, glorified and exalted, is supremely manifest. Manifestness includes elevation, which is why the hadith says, “and nothing is above You,” rather than, “and nothing is more manifest than You.” Had the intended meaning been merely being apparent and evident to people, that would have contradicted His being described as Hidden, since something’s being manifest in the sense of being known or witnessed is incompatible with its being hidden.

Manifestness, however, includes the meaning of elevation. It is characteristic of something high to be manifest and apparent, unlike something low, which tends to be concealed: when something rises, it comes into view and eyes behold it. Thus He, glorified be He, is manifest in a manner that includes His elevation, so nothing is above Him; He is also Hidden, so nothing is below Him. The term dūn (“below”) is not intended in the sense of “inferior,” meaning deficient. Rather, since