and by whose command the heaven and the earth stand, and who holds them lest they cease to be—could He need them and depend upon them, so that if they ceased to be, He would disperse and scatter?

If Muslims declare a person who says that the heavens carry Him or shelter Him to be a disbeliever, because this implies His dependence upon His creatures, then is not someone who says that, in His being established over the Throne, He needs the Throne just as something carried needs its bearer, a disbeliever? For Allah has no need of the worlds. He is the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining Sustainer of all, absolutely free of need, while everything besides Him depends upon Him. Yet His being established over the Throne is itself affirmed by the Quran, the Sunnah, and the agreement of the early generations of this community and the leading scholars of the Sunnah. Indeed, it is affirmed in every Book revealed to every prophet sent. What, then, of someone who says that He depends upon the heavens and the earth, and that if the heavens and the earth were removed, He would disperse, scatter, and cease to exist? How could His supposed need for the Throne to carry Him compare with the supposed dependence of His very essence upon what is below the Throne?

Then these people are told: If you maintain that the heavens and the earth have existed without beginning and will endure forever, this is disbelief. It amounts to affirming that the world has no beginning and denying that the heavens and the earth will split and break apart. But if you maintain that they came into existence, then how was He before their creation? Was He scattered, dispersed, and nonexistent, only to become existent and gathered together when He created them? Would any rational person say this?

You are thus caught between two forms of disbelief, coupled with the utmost ignorance and misguidance; choose whichever you wish. The forms of the world continually perish, and replacements come into existence within it, such as animals, plants, and minerals, and such things as Allah brings into being in the atmosphere: clouds, thunder, lightning, rain, and other things. Thus, whenever any of these ceases to exist, the light of the Real diminishes and disperses