Account of a Debate Concerning Direction and Occupying Space

The following records what was demanded of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him and be pleased with him—when he was brought from Damascus by postal relay and imprisoned in the dungeon of the Mountain Citadel after a hearing at the deputy sultan’s residence. He arrived on Thursday, the twenty-sixth of Ramadan. The hearing was held on Friday, the twenty-seventh, after the Friday prayer, and he was imprisoned that day—may Allah have mercy on him.

He was required to believe that direction and occupying space must be denied of Allah; and not to say that Allah’s speech consists of letters and sound subsisting in Him, but rather that it is a meaning subsisting in His Essence. He was also required to believe that He, glorified and exalted is He, cannot be pointed to with the fingers in a physical gesture. He was further required not to discuss the hadiths and Quranic verses concerning the divine attributes before the common people, nor to write about them in letters sent to other lands or in fatwas concerning them.

He replied as follows:

As for the statement, “He is required to believe that direction and occupying space must be denied of Allah,” my words contain no affirmation of this terminology, for employing it in negation is an innovation. I have said only what is conveyed by the Book and the Sunnah and agreed upon by the Ummah.

If the person making this statement means that there is no Lord above the heavens and that above the Throne there is no