, saying, ‘O Lord! O Lord!’” And there are other such examples whose number only Allah knows. These are among the most compelling instances of mass transmission, both in wording and in meaning. They impart certainty of the most compelling and self-evident kind: that the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who conveyed Allah’s message, taught the community to whom he directed his call that Allah, glorified is He, is upon the Throne and above heaven. Allah has naturally disposed all peoples to this recognition, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, both before Islam and within Islam—except those whom the devils have led astray from their innate disposition. Moreover, the statements of the early generations on this subject, if collected, would number in the hundreds or thousands.
Furthermore, neither in Allah’s Book nor in the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, nor in anything transmitted from the early generations of this community—whether the Companions, those who followed them faithfully, or the imams who lived through the age of doctrinal deviations and disputes—is there a single word contradicting this, either explicitly or in its apparent meaning. None of them ever said that Allah is not in heaven, that He is not upon the Throne, that He is present in His Essence in every place, that all places are alike in relation to Him, that He is neither within the world nor outside it, that He is neither connected to it nor separate from it, or that one cannot point towards Him with one’s fingers or similar physical gestures. Rather, it is established in the authentic hadith collection, on the authority of Jābir ibn ‘Abdullāh, that:
“When the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, delivered his great sermon on the Day of ‘Arafāt, at the largest gathering ever attended by the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, he kept asking, ‘Have I conveyed the message?’
“They replied, ‘Yes.’
“He would raise his finger towards heaven, then turn it towards them, saying more than once, ‘O Allah, bear witness.’”
There are many similar examples. So if the truth is what these deniers say, who negate the attributes established in