This is grave misguidance, one of the forms of error concerning the words of Allah and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. These include the assumptions of those who advocate imaginative representation, those who distort and alter the texts, and those who attribute ignorance of their meanings. This has been discussed at length elsewhere. May Allah guide us and all our brothers to His straight path, the path of those He has blessed among the prophets, the steadfastly truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous. What excellent companions they are!

The purpose here is to discuss those who say that He descends without the Throne becoming empty of Him. The hadith scholars hold three positions on this issue. Some reject saying either that the Throne becomes empty of Him or that it does not. This is the position of the hadith master Abd al-Ghanī and others.

Others say that the Throne does indeed become empty of Him. Abd al-Rahmān ibn Mandah wrote a work refuting those who say, “He does not leave the Throne,” or, “The Throne does not become empty of Him”—some of his words have already been quoted. Many hadith scholars refrain from saying whether it becomes empty of Him or not. Most of them, however, hold that the Throne does not become empty of Him.

Many refrain from saying whether it becomes empty of Him or not because they are uncertain about this and neither answer has become clear to them. Alternatively, even when one of them finds one of the two positions more convincing, he refrains from speaking on the matter because it is not stated in the hadith