and it is not recognized that what is said of the meaning of rising over also applies to the meanings of sitting and settling. If dependence is included in those meanings, then there is no difference between rising over, sitting, and settling: in this sense, He is neither rising over, nor settled, nor sitting. If, however, their meanings include nothing beyond what is included in the meaning of rising over, then affirming one while denying the other is arbitrary. It is known that there are familiar distinctions between the meanings of rising over, settling, and sitting. The point here, however, is to recognize the error of someone who denies something while affirming its counterpart.

This error appears to stem from his mistaken understanding of Allah’s rising over the Throne: he supposes that it resembles a person’s mounting the backs of livestock or boarding ships. Yet nothing in this wording indicates that, for Allah attributes rising over to His noble Self, just as He attributes all His other acts and attributes to Himself. Thus, He states that He created and then rose over the Throne, just as He states that He determined and then guided, that He built the heaven with might, and that He is with Moses and Aaron, hearing and seeing, and other such things.

He does not speak of rising over in an unrestricted sense applicable to a created being, nor in a general sense encompassing created beings, just as He does not speak in such terms concerning His other attributes. Rather, He speaks of rising over as something He attributes to His noble Self. If it were supposed—on the basis of an impossible hypothesis—that He was like His creation—exalted is He above that—then His rising over would resemble that of His creation. But if He is not like His creation—indeed, it is known that He has no need of creation, that He is the Creator of the Throne and everything else, and that everything other than Him depends upon Him,