“Beware of falling short or neglecting anything I have instructed you to do, for I am with you.” You mean that neither his negligence nor his diligence escapes your notice, because you oversee him and inquire into his affairs. If this expression is permissible regarding a created being who does not know the unseen, it is all the more appropriate regarding the Creator, who knows the unseen.

Likewise, He is in every place, seeing you; nothing in any place is hidden from Him. He is in those places through His knowledge of them and His encompassing awareness. How, then, can anyone say that He is in every place by indwelling, when He says:

“The Most Merciful established Himself above the Throne,”

meaning, settled? Allah, Exalted is He, says:

“When you and those with you have boarded the ship,”

meaning, when you have settled aboard it. And how can they say this when He says:

“To Him ascends good speech, and righteous deeds raise it”?

How can anything ascend to Him when He is with it, or any deed rise to Him when it is already with Him? And how do the angels and the Spirit ascend on the Day of Resurrection? “Ascend” means “rise”: one says that someone ascended to heaven when he rose to it. Allah is the Lord of the ways of ascent, and these ways of ascent are stairways. What, then, are these stairways? To whom do the angels convey deeds if His being in the highest place is just like His being in the lowest place?

If these people returned to their innate disposition and the knowledge of the Creator with which they were endowed, they would know that Allah is the Most High, the Highest, and that He is in a lofty place; that hearts soar toward Him when He is remembered, and hands are raised to Him in supplication. It is from above that relief is hoped for, and victory and provision are expected.