the night—the last third—and says:

‘Who will call upon Me, that I may answer him? Who will ask of Me, that I may give him? Who will seek My forgiveness, that I may forgive him?’

We therefore affirm His descent to the lowest heaven on the authority of the hadith. We do not adopt the figurative interpretation they have mentioned, nor do we equate His descent with human descent, which involves departure and movement from above to below. Rather, we accept the transmitted account as it has come to us, reject any likening of Him to creation because there is no basis for it, and rule out figurative interpretation because it is inapplicable.”

He said:

“This report is the well-known one, and it is the position adopted by the majority of the shaykhs of our school.”

(I say:

That His coming, arrival and descent are unlike the coming, arrival and descent of created beings is self-evident and agreed upon by the scholars of the Sunnah and all people of reason. Attributes and actions correspond to the essence that possesses those attributes and performs those actions. Since His essence is distinct from all other essences and unlike them, it necessarily follows that His attributes are distinct from all other attributes and unlike them. His attributes relate to His essence as the attributes of anything relate to its essence.

There is no doubt that He is the Most High, the Most Exalted, the Magnificent. He is higher than everything and greater than everything. His descent and coming therefore cannot be such that created things encompass Him or are greater and larger than Him. That is impossible.

As for the terms “departure” and “movement,” these are ambiguous, and for this reason