to say that He is not above the Throne, nor great and immense in Himself. Nor would what you have conceded entail that He is not above the Throne, even if He is said to be in a single spatial region or a single direction.

If you do not concede this, but instead claim that there is no Lord above the heavens and no God there at all; that Muhammad was not taken up to Allah Most High, but merely ascended to the upper reaches of the universe; and that the Lord of the worlds is neither within the universe nor outside it, they will say to you: “We maintain that whoever describes Him in these terms has made Him out to be nonexistent, and what is nonexistent is more insignificant than an indivisible atom. That being so, as long as you persist in this negation, we will not concede to you that He is more insignificant than an indivisible atom. For that would entail conceding two contradictory propositions: we would have conceded that He is nonexistent and that He is more insignificant than an indivisible atom. That is invalid.”

If, on this supposition, we do not concede to him that He is more insignificant than an indivisible atom, he cannot appeal to consensus, as already explained in a similar case. We have also already cited what he established at the beginning of his Nihāyah: appealing to a consensus of this kind, whose underlying grounds differ, is invalid both in independent reasoning and in debate. A disputant may not invoke someone’s agreement when it rests on grounds he does not believe to be sound. His opponent can reply: “Unless you agree with me on the underlying grounds, I will not concede the conclusion to you on this supposition, since I regard it as a supposition that does not hold.” Thus he has no argument in any case. Even if he were to invoke this by appealing to the innate disposition concerning