if by this he means someone who does not believe that Allah is inside heaven, confined and encompassed by it, then he is mistaken. But if he means someone who does not believe what the Book and the Sunnah teach, and what the early generations of this community and its leading scholars agreed upon—that Allah is above His heavens, over His Throne, separate from His creation—then he is correct. For whoever does not believe this is rejecting the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and following a path other than that of the believers. Indeed, he is, in reality, denying his Lord’s attributes and denying Him; thus, he has, in reality, no God to worship and no Lord to petition or turn to. This is the position of the Jahmiyyah and others like them among the followers of Pharaoh, who denied his Lord.

Allah has given His servants—Arabs and non-Arabs alike—an innate disposition whereby their hearts turn upward when they call upon Him; they do not seek Him beneath their feet. Hence, one of those who know Allah said:

“No one who knows Allah ever says, ‘O Allah,’ without finding in his heart—before his tongue even moves—an impulse directed upward, turning neither to the right nor to the left.”

After a lengthy discussion, he cited the hadith:

“Every child is born upon the natural disposition.”

On this subject, the advocates of divine indwelling and denial of the divine attributes have specious arguments with which they oppose the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, the consensus of the early generations of this community and its leading scholars, the innate disposition Allah has given His servants, and what sound rational proofs establish. For all these proofs agree