The second type is exemplified by the statement of Abd Allah ibn al-Mubārak. When asked, “How are we to know our Lord?” he replied:

“By knowing that He is above His heavens, over His Throne, separate from His creation. We do not say, as the Jahmiyyah do, ‘He is here.’”

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, al-Bukhārī, Ibn Khuzaymah, Uthmān ibn Sa‘īd, and many other imams of the early generations—may Allah be pleased with them—said likewise. No contrary view has been transmitted from any of the early generations.

Hishām ibn Ubayd Allah al-Rāzī—an associate of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan—imprisoned a man until he would affirm, “The Most Merciful rose over the Throne.” Once the man had acknowledged this, Hishām had him brought out and asked, “Do you say that He is separate?”

“No,” he replied.

Hishām said, “Take him back, for he is a Jahmī.”

By separateness, these imams and others like them did not mean the absence of resemblance, for no one disputed that. Nor did they oblige people to acknowledge separateness in the narrower sense. They said, “Separate from His creation,” not, “Separate from the Throne alone.” Thus they spoke of separateness in relation to created things generally, including the Throne and everything else, since the Throne is itself a created thing. It is therefore clear that, in speaking of this separateness, they neither affirmed nor denied direct adjacency.

Some proponents of negation, however, may say, “By separateness I mean only the absence of sharing a location and interpenetration, without including the meaning of being outside.”

Even what does not exist may be described as separate in this sense. Such a person may therefore say, “What does not exist is separate from what exists in this respect.” This is a “fourth” meaning of separateness. Once it is understood that people may intend these different meanings by “separateness,” there is no doubt that