the very one who necessitates its existence. How, then, could He be elevated, not intrinsically, but as a consequence of being situated in that direction, when He is independent of everything besides Him and everything besides Him depends upon Him? Glorified and supremely exalted is He above what the wrongdoers and those who set others equal to Him say!
The words of this man and others like him amount to setting others equal to Allah, associating partners with Him, assigning rivals to Him, and drawing comparisons with Him. For he has made His elevation and His being above the world comparable to a king’s elevation upon his throne, or to someone being in the air above his roof, below which a man has descended, so that the man is beneath him while the other remains elevated. He has also made His elevation dependent upon something by which He is raised, just as a person depends upon a roof or a throne.
Thus, his account of Allah’s elevation entails making it like this kind of elevation. It combines likening Allah to creation and setting others equal to Him at the outset with denying His elevation—which entails denying His very existence—in the end. This is why the early generations and the imams would describe these people in both ways: as likening Allah to creation and setting others equal to Him