them; this is how the people of knowledge have explained it. The beginning and end of the verse indicate that it refers to His knowledge, while He is upon His Throne. This is the position of the Muslims.’”

Some proponents of falsehood have reinterpreted the statement of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abī Zayd—“He, in His very Being, is above His glorious Throne, and He is everywhere through His knowledge”—by reading al-Majīd (“the Glorious”) in the nominative case. The intended meaning is then that Allah is the Glorious in His very Being. Besides displaying obvious ignorance, this amounts to saying: “The Most Compassionate in His very Being, the Most Merciful in His very Being, and the Almighty in His very Being.”

Ibn Abī Zayd also said in the introduction to al-Risālah (The Epistle): “He rose over the Throne and holds dominion over the kingdom.” He thus distinguished rising over from exercising dominion, in accordance with the principle upheld by the imams whose teachings are followed. Moreover, Ibn Abī Zayd explicitly stated in al-Mukhtasar (The Abridgment) that “Allah is in His heaven, not on His earth.” These are his exact words. What Ibn Abī Zayd stated has consistently been affirmed by the imams of Ahl al-Sunnah across all their groups.

The imam Abū ‘Amr al-Talamankī mentioned in his book, which he entitled al-Wusūl ilā Ma‘rifat al-Usūl (Attaining Knowledge of the Foundations), that Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah agree that Allah, in His very Being, rose over His Throne. Muhammad ibn ‘Uthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, the hadith master of Kufa, who belonged to the generation of al-Bukhārī and his peers, likewise related this position from Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah. The imam Yahyā ibn ‘Ammār al-Sijistānī also stated it in his well-known epistle on the Sunnah, which he wrote to the king of his land.