by people’s innate dispositions that the One they worship and invoke is above is self-evident to reason and innate disposition, rather than something learned merely from transmitted revelation. This differs from His rising over the Throne—after creating the heavens and the earth in six days—which is known through transmitted revelation. Thus, the days of the week are known only through those who acknowledge prophethood. Those unfamiliar with this, such as the polytheist Turks, have no names for the days of the week in their language. This is part of the wisdom behind the followers of each religion gathering on one day of the week, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Today is ours, tomorrow is for the Jews, and the day after tomorrow is for the Christians.”
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr discussed this at length, eventually saying:
“As for their appeal to the statement of Allah Most High:
‘There is no private conversation between three but He is their fourth, nor between five but He is their sixth,’
it offers them no proof. For the scholars among the Companions and their successors explained this verse by saying: ‘He is upon the Throne, and His knowledge is everywhere.’ No one whose statement carries authority disagreed with them on this.”
Abū ʿUmar said:
“Ahl al-Sunnah unanimously affirm all the attributes mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah, believe in them, and understand them in their real, not figurative, sense. Yet they do not specify how any of them are, nor define them through a circumscribed description.
“As for the people of innovation—the Jahmiyyah, the Muʿtazilah, and the Khawārij—they all deny these attributes and understand none of them in their real sense. They claim that whoever affirms them likens Allah to His creation, whereas those who affirm them regard these deniers as negating the One who is worshipped. The truth is what the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, declare; those who affirm these attributes are the leading scholars of the community.”