This contradiction in affirming a being who is neither outside the world nor the world itself—an affirmation rejected by their innate dispositions, direct awareness, and reason—is distinct from the innate acknowledgment of a Maker above the world. The latter is the innate disposition’s acknowledgment of recognized truth; the former is its rejection of manifest falsehood.

An example of this is the well-known account related by Muhammad ibn Tāhir al-Maqdisī. Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar al-Hamdānī once attended a gathering in which the teacher Abū al-Maʿālī was saying from the pulpit, “Allah existed when there was no Throne,” and denying His rising over the Throne—as was well known of his teaching, although toward the end of his life he abandoned this belief and died upon the faith of his mother and the elderly women of Nishapur.

He related that Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar said, “Teacher, let us set aside mention of the Throne”—meaning that knowledge of it comes only through revelation—“and tell us about this inescapable awareness we find in our hearts: no one who knows Allah has ever said, ‘O Allah,’ without finding in his heart an impulse directed upward, turning neither right nor left. How, then, can we remove this inescapable awareness from our hearts?”

Abū al-Maʿālī cried out, placed his hand on his head, and said, “Al-Hamdānī has confounded me!”—or words to that effect—and descended from the pulpit.

This shaykh spoke on behalf of all the children of Adam. He explained that knowledge of the Throne and of Allah’s rising over it comes only through revelation and the reports of the Quran and Sunnah. This differs from acknowledging that Allah is above creation, without specifying a Throne or a rising over it. This is something innate and self-evident that we, and everyone who calls upon Allah Most High, find in our hearts. How, then, can we remove this inescapable awareness from our hearts?