Abū Hanīfah said:
“The greater understanding of religion is better than understanding in matters of learning. For a man to understand how to worship his Lord is better for him than to amass much knowledge.”

Abū Mutīʿ—“al-Hakam ibn ʿAbd Allāh”—said:
“I said, ‘Tell me about the best understanding.’
He replied, ‘For a man to learn about faith, the religious laws, the Sunnah, the prescribed limits, and the disagreements among the imams.’”

He discussed matters of “faith,” then matters of “divine decree” and the refutation of the Qadariyyah, with sound arguments that do not belong here.

He then said:
“I asked, ‘What do you say about someone who enjoins what is right and forbids what is wrong, whom some people follow in this, and who then rebels against the community? Do you approve of that?’
He replied, ‘No.’
I asked, ‘Why, when Allah and His Messenger have commanded enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and it is a binding obligation?’
He replied, ‘That is so. But the harm they cause exceeds the good they achieve, through bloodshed and treating what is forbidden as lawful.’”

He said: “He also discussed killing the Khawārij and rebels.” He continued until he said:

Abū Hanīfah said concerning someone who says, “I do not know whether my Lord is in heaven or on earth”:
“He has disbelieved, for Allah says:
‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne.’
And His Throne is above the seven heavens.”

I asked, “What if he says that He rose over the Throne, but says, ‘I do not know whether the Throne is in heaven or on earth’?”
He replied, “He is an unbeliever, because he has denied that He is in heaven; for He, Most High, is in the highest heights, and supplication is directed to Him above, not below.”

In another wording:
I asked Abū Hanīfah about someone who says, “I do not know whether my Lord is in heaven or on earth.”
He replied, “He has disbelieved.”
He said, “For Allah