However, scholars hold two opinions on whether this third supplication may be used. Shaykh Abū al-Hasan al-Qudūrī said in his book entitled Sharh al-Karkhī (Commentary on al-Karkhī):

Bishr ibn al-Walīd said: “I heard Abū Yūsuf say: ‘Abū Hanīfah said that no one should supplicate to Allah except by Him, and that he disapproved of saying, “By the seats of might in Your Throne,” or, “By the right of Your creation.”’”

This is also the position of Abū Yūsuf. Abū Yūsuf said: “‘The seat of might in His Throne’ is Allah, so I do not disapprove of this. But I disapprove of saying, ‘By the right of Your prophets and messengers, and by the right of the House and the Sacred Monument.’”

Al-Qudūrī said: “Asking Him by His creation is not permissible, because created beings have no right over the Creator; thus, it is not permissible”—meaning that this is agreed upon. These statements of Abū Hanīfah, Abū Yūsuf and others imply that asking Allah by anything other than Him is prohibited.

If it is said: “The Lord, glorified and exalted is He, swears by whatever He wills of His created things, whereas we may adjure Him only by Himself. Why, then, should it not be said that He may be adjured by His created things, while a created being may be adjured only by the Creator Most High?”

The answer is that His swearing by His created things is a form of praising and extolling Him and mentioning His signs. Our swearing by them, however, is associating partners with Allah when we do so to urge someone to act, to restrain him, or to affirm or deny a report.

When someone says to another, “I ask you by such-and-such,” he may be swearing an oath, in which case this is not permissible by anything other than Allah Most High. Responsibility for expiation in this case lies with the person swearing, not the person whom he adjures, as the leading jurists have explicitly stated. If he is not swearing an oath, then it is a request, and neither of them owes any expiation for it.

It is thus clear that someone who asks Allah by His creation is either swearing by a created being—which is not permissible—or asking Him by that being, a matter whose details have already been explained. And if he says, “By Allah, I do such-and-such,”