ibn Sa‘īd ibn Kullāb before him, and others. If these men argued in this way, what, then, of those who neither deny nor affirm that He is a body, or those who affirm it?

His use of these hadiths—and their use by other scholars of the Muslim community and its early generations—to establish that Allah is above shows that, in their understanding, the Lord’s descent is not merely the descent of something He created, such as His angels, His blessings, His mercy, or the like. For if they understood this hadith to mean the descent of some created thing, it would not be valid to cite it as evidence that He is above the Throne. That would be like sending down rain and creating living creatures. We do not use such things as evidence concerning the Throne as we do the words “Our Lord descends.” Thus, when they cited the words “Our Lord descends” as evidence, it becomes clear that they were