to gain deeper understanding of the religion and to ask you about how everything began.”

He answered:

“Allah was, and there was nothing before Him —
(in another recension: with Him; in another: other than Him).
His Throne was upon the water, He inscribed in the Record everything that would ever exist, and He created the heavens and the earth.”

In yet another wording: “Then He created the heavens and the earth.”(1)

Thus they had asked him about the initiation of the creation of the heavens and the earth; for this reason they said, “We have come to ask you about the first of this affair,” and he replied only to what they inquired about. Hence he did not inform them of the creation of the Throne, as he did in the ḥadīth of Abū Razīn mentioned earlier.(2)

Ibn Jarīr(3) said: Others, however, held that Allah ﷻ created the water before the Throne. Al-Suddī related this from Abū Mālik, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās; from Murrah, from Ibn Masʿūd; and from a number of the Prophet’s Companions ﷺ, who said(4): “Allah’s Throne was upon the water, and He had created nothing besides what He had created before the water.”

Ibn Jarīr(5) also transmitted from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq that he said:

“The first thing Allah ﷻ created was light and darkness. He then distinguished between them, making the darkness a black, gloomy night, and the light a bright, radiant day.”

Ibn Jarīr further said: It has likewise been asserted that

“After the Pen, our Lord created the Footstool (al-Kursī); after the Footstool He created the Throne; thereafter He created the air and the darkness; then He created the water, [upon which He placed His Throne].”(6)

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir, in the biography of ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan(7) ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jamīʿ al-Ghassānī al-Ṣaydāwī,(8) reports through al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, from his father,(9) from his grandfather Aḥmad ibn Jamīʿ: Muḥammad ibn al-Muʿāfī al-Ṣadūq narrated to us, Muḥammad ibn Khalaf narrated to us, Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf narrated to us, from Sufyān, from al-Aʿmash, from al-Minhāl ibn ʿAmr, from Abū Arākah, who said:

A man asked ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, “From what were the creatures created?” He replied, “From light, darkness, water, and soil.” He then said, “Go to Ibn ʿAbbās and ask him.” The man went to Ibn ʿAbbās and posed the question; Ibn ʿAbbās gave the same answer. He then told him, “Return to him and ask, ‘From what was all of that created?’” So the man returned, asked again, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr recited the Almighty’s words:

“And He has subjected to you whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on earth, all from Him…” (Q 45:13).