in its due place.
The scholars then disagreed: was there anything created before the heavens and the earth?
Some theologians held that nothing existed before them at all, and that they were brought forth out of sheer non-existence.
Others maintained that there were created beings prior to the heavens and the earth, citing the verse,
“ He is the One who created the heavens and the earth in six days, while His Throne was upon the water ” (Sūrat Hūd, 11:7).
Likewise, the ḥadīth of ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn—which will be presented in full later—states:
“Allah was, and there was nothing before Him; His Throne was upon the water; He wrote in the Record everything that is to be, then He created the heavens and the earth.”
Imām Aḥmad reported—with the chain: Bahz → Ḥammād ibn Salamah → Yaʿlā ibn ʿAṭāʾ → Wakiʿ ibn Ḥudus → his uncle Abū Razīn Laqīṭ ibn ʿĀmir al-ʿUqaylī—that the latter said:
“O Messenger of Allah, where was our Lord before He created the heavens and the earth?”
He replied, “In a haze (ʿamāʾ) with no air above it; then He created His Throne upon the water.”
Aḥmad also transmitted it through Yazīd ibn Hārūn from Ḥammād ibn Salamah with the wording:
“Where was our Lord before He created His creation?”—and the rest of the report is the same.
Al-Tirmidhī recorded it from Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, and Ibn Mājah from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah and Muḥammad ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ, all of them narrating from Yazīd ibn Hārūn; al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan.
Those who held that there were pre-cosmic creatures also differed over which of them was created first.
Some said that the Pen was created before all the rest, and this view was chosen