we have already explained that the position of the master Abū Ishāq was to affirm that Allah necessarily possesses an attribute entailing His transcendence of spatial confines and directions, and His exclusive possession of the attributes of majesty. We know that He does not belong to the class of substances and accidents that we observe, and that He cannot be conceived in the imagination. When we say that He is neither within the world nor outside it, we do not mean to deny His existence—exalted is He—as the corporealists accuse us of doing. Rather, we mean to affirm an existence that is unbounded in any respect. Whoever affirms a boundary and a limit for Allah in one direction must consequently affirm limits in every direction. For saying that He is within the world or outside it entails a boundary and a limit by virtue of which entering or leaving the world would be possible for Him.

Some theologians said that His most distinctive attribute is the necessity of His existence. Some of our companions said that His most distinctive attribute is His self-subsistence, together with the absence of limits and spatial magnitude. This is what the master meant.

Nothing has been transmitted from our shaykh Abū al-Hasan—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—on this matter, except his statement that the Lord, glorified is He, is distinguished from all others only by His character, namely His power to originate and His entitlement to the attributes of majesty. It was also related by