63- He said (1): Ibn Muhammad also informed us—he added (2) that ʿAbdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Ziyad narrated to us; Shiroyeh (3) narrated to us; Ishaq ibn Rahuyah narrated to us; Ibrahim ibn al-Hakam ibn Aban narrated to us, from his father, from ʿIkrimah, with respect to the verse, “Then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them, from their right and from their left” (4). He said: Ibn ʿAbbas remarked, “Satan was unable (to say) (5) ‘from above them,’ for he knew that Allah is above them (6).”
64- ʿAbdullah ibn Ahmad likewise transmitted: Abu Bakr narrated to us; ʿAsim ibn ʿAli narrated to us; my father narrated, from ʿAtaʾ ibn al-Saʾib, from Saʿid ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbas, who said, “Reflect on everything, but do not reflect on the Essence of Allah. Between the seven heavens and His Kursi (Footstool) there are seven thousand lights, and He is above that (7).”
(1) The narrator is al-Lalaka‘i. In other manuscripts it reads: “Akhbaranā Abū Bakr,” “Anba’a Abū Bakr,” “Anba’a Abū al-Qāsim,” “Anba’a Aḥmad ibn Ḥamd….”
(2) Some manuscripts read “Anba’a.” The original text agrees with al-Lalaka‘i’s version.
(3) This reading appears in all manuscripts; al-Lalaka‘i has “Ibn Shirwayh,” which is likely correct.
(4) Quran 7:17.
(5) The phrase “an yaqula” (“to say”) is not in the original; it appears only in other manuscripts and in al-Lalaka‘i.
(6) Reported by al-Lalaka‘i in Sharḥ Uṣūl ‘Aqīdat Ahl al-Sunnah, ḥadīth no. 661, vol. 2:396–397; by al-Ṭabarī in his Tafsīr (8:37); and by Ibn Kathīr (3:391)—all with the wording “wa lam yaqul min fawqihim li’anna al-raḥma tanzilu min fawqihim” (“and He did not say ‘from above them,’ for mercy descends from above them”).
(7) Also transmitted by al-Bayhaqī in al-Asmā’ wa al-Ṣifāt (p. 530); Abū Ja‘far ibn Abī Shayba in Kitāb al-‘Arsh, no. 16 (p. 59); al-Suyūṭī in al-Jāmi‘ al-Kabīr (1:477) and al-Jāmi‘ al-Ṣaghīr (1:514); Abū Naṣr al-Sajzī in al-ʾIbāna—who remarks that al-Suyūṭī calls it “strange” in the Kabīr—and by Abū al-Shaykh in Kitāb al-‘Uẓma (nos. 2, 22); cited by Ibn Taymiyya in Darʾ Ta‘āruḍ al-‘Aql wa al-Naql (6:203), attributing it to al-‘Assāl in Kitāb al-Ma‘rifa; by Ibn al-Qayyim in Ijtimā‘ al-Juyūsh al-Islāmiyya (p. 69); and by al-Albānī in Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ṣaḥīḥa (4:396), who notes the isnād is weak because ‘Aṭā’ was confused. I note that this is accurate, since al-Ḥāfiẓ said of ‘Aṭā’ b. al-Sā’ib: “truthful but prone to confusion” (al-Taqrīb 2:22).