Thus, if these unseen created things are unlike the created things we see—despite sharing the same names—then the Creator is far more exalted above and distinct from His creation than one created thing is from another, even when the names are shared. He has called Himself Living, Knowing, Hearing, and Seeing, and has called some of His creatures kind and merciful. Yet the Living is not like other living beings, the Knowing is not like others who know, the Hearing is not like others who hear, the Seeing is not like others who see, the Kind is not like others who are kind, and the Merciful is not like others who are merciful.

He also said, while citing the well-known hadith of the slave girl:

“Where is Allah?”
She replied, “In heaven.”

But this does not mean that Allah is inside heaven, or that the heavens confine and contain Him. None of the early generations of this community or its leading scholars said this. Rather, they agree that Allah is above His heavens, over His Throne, separate from His creation. Nothing of His essence is within His creatures, and nothing of His creatures is within His essence.

Mālik ibn Anas said: “Allah is above heaven, and His knowledge is everywhere.”

He went on to say:

Whoever believes that Allah is inside heaven, confined and encompassed by it; that He needs the Throne or any other created thing; or that His rising over His Throne is like a created being’s rising onto its seat, is misguided, an innovator, and ignorant. Whoever believes that there is no God above the heavens to be worshipped, no Lord over the Throne to whom prayer and prostration are offered, that Muhammad was not taken up to his Lord, and that the Quran did not descend from Him, is a denier of the divine attributes in the manner of Pharaoh, misguided, and an innovator.

After a lengthy discussion, he said:

As for the person who said, “Whoever does not believe that Allah is in heaven is misguided”: