ʿUmar, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāhid al-Maqdisī included it in his “Mukhtār” (Selected Hadiths). Some hadith scholars reject it because of inconsistencies in its transmission, as did Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī, Ibn al-Jawzī and others. Most adherents of the Sunnah, however, accepted it. It contains the statement:

“His Throne—or His Footstool—encompasses the heavens and the earth, and He sits upon it, leaving not even four fingers’ breadth of it to spare—or leaving only four fingers’ breadth of it to spare—and it creaks beneath Him as a new saddle creaks beneath its rider.”

The expression “creaking” also occurs in the hadith of Jubayr ibn Mutʿim transmitted by Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan. Ibn ʿAsākir devoted a treatise to it, basing his criticism chiefly on Ibn Ishāq. Yet this hadith was transmitted by scholars of the Sunnah, such as Ahmad, Abū Dāwūd and others, and everything it contains has corroboration in another narration. The expression “creaking” also occurs in other reports.

Imam Ahmad and others transmitted Ibn Khalīfa’s hadith in an abridged form, and he mentioned that Wakīʿ had narrated it. However, many of those who transmitted it narrated it with the wording, “Only four fingers’ breadth of it remains to spare,” thus making the Throne extend four fingers’ breadth beyond Him. Al-Qādī held, as did Ibn