the Throne, arguing that Allah existed before the Throne and that the Throne brought about no new state in Him, this shaykh, the hadith master Abū Jaʿfar al-Hamdānī, rose to address him and said: “We know what you are referring to.” That is: leave aside the mention of the Throne, for knowledge of that rests on revelation and reason, and leave aside challenging it with these deductive arguments. “But do you have any way of overcoming what is inescapable?” In other words: “How do you deal with this inescapable awareness within our hearts? No one who knows Allah ever says, ‘O my Lord!’ without an inward impulse arising even before his tongue moves, turning neither right nor left, but directing itself upward. Do you have any way of overcoming this involuntary turning? If so, explain it, so that we may be rid of above and below.”

He said: Abū al-Maʿālī then cried out, struck the couch, and tore his clothing. His only answer was: “Confusion! Confusion! Bewilderment! Bewilderment!” He would say: “Al-Hamdānī has confounded me.”

This is because Allah’s rising over the Throne after creating the heavens and the earth is known only through revelation. That Allah is above the world, however, is known through the inescapable awareness of innate human nature. When driven by desperate need, the heart turns only to what it knows, in accordance with that knowledge.

Thus, he said to Abū al-Maʿālī: “The theoretical arguments you mention cannot dispel this necessity: an involuntary turning of the heart that necessarily entails inescapable knowledge.” Abū al-Maʿālī recognized that this was a valid objection and said: “Al-Hamdānī has confounded me,” because he had countered the theoretical reasoning he presented with the inescapable awareness he had explained. He therefore cried out in confusion because of the conflict between necessary and theoretical knowledge, and because this necessity, which exists