For there is no entity above the True One other than Him
In which you might suppose Him to dwell.

Or if you say, “He is neither inside nor outside,”
This implies that He does not exist.

For you have combined contradictions and thereby described Him
As nonexistent—will you abandon them?

He did not say, “He is neither Manifest nor Hidden”;
Rather, He is the Manifest; He is the Hidden.

So return and repent! Whoever speaks as you do
Is indeed a denier of His attributes, with disbelief lurking within him.

Kindly favour us with your answer in verse:
Is he truthful in his claim, or does he lie?

Address each point with a clear, decisive answer,
For Allah guarantees a good end to the mufti whose ruling is correct.

He replied—may Allah be pleased with him:

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

The disputants’ response to statements such as these is to say that they contain two things:

First: an argument establishing that the Lord, Most High, is separate from the world and outside it.

Second: an answer to the argument of those who deny this, reasoning that it necessarily entails occupying a spatial enclosure and being in a direction. Both, they maintain, are false, and the falsity of a necessary consequence entails the falsity of that which entails it.

As for his argument, its substance is that you are either separate from the Creator or not separate from Him. If you say that you are separate, it necessarily follows that He, too, is separate from you, because