Likewise, it is impermissible to say:

“He is below rather than above, with a lowness befitting His majesty.”

For He—glory be to Him—is the Exalted, the Most High; He is never anything but high above. Lowness is a deficiency from which He is far removed. The statement,

“You are the Inward, and nothing is nearer than You,”

implies lowness only to an ignorant person who does not understand the true nature of height and lowness, and therefore imagines that the heavens and whatever they contain may be beneath the earth, whether by night or by day. This is an error, like imagining that what lies in the eastern sky is beneath what lies in the western sky. This too is an error. Rather, the sky is always above the earth. Even though the celestial sphere is round and surrounds the earth, it is truly above the earth in every direction. This has been explained at length elsewhere.

The second category is that He is far exalted above any created thing resembling Him in any of His attributes. Accordingly, what is affirmed by the wording of the Quran and Sunnah is to be affirmed, and what is denied by their wording is to be denied. As for terms that admit more than one meaning, such as “motion,” “descent,” and “change of place,” one must say concerning them that He is far exalted above resembling created beings in any respect. He does not resemble any created being in descent, motion, change of place, departure, or anything else. As for affirming this category, as with the term “descent,” or denying it