and the earth—this says nothing about the very first thing Allah created. Indeed, it does not even mention His creation of the Throne and the water; it speaks only of His creation of the heavens and the earth. Nor does it explicitly state that His Throne was upon the water only afterwards. Rather, this is mentioned using the conjunction wāw (“and”), which simply joins the coordinated clauses without specifying their sequence.

Since the hadith neither identifies the first created thing nor mentions when the Throne was created—which it describes as being upon the water alongside the statement, “Allah existed, and there was nothing with Him”—this indicates that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, did not intend to speak of Allah’s existence alone before everything else and the beginning of created things thereafter, if his wording does not indicate that. Rather, he intended to describe the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth.

(Seventh point: It may be said that one cannot assert with certainty what the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, intended without evidence indicating his intent. Even supposing that his wording admits either of two meanings, neither may be asserted definitively without evidence. Thus, if one of them is the more likely meaning, anyone who asserts that the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, intended the other meaning is mistaken.

(Eighth point: It may be said that, if this proposition were true, it would be too momentous to establish through ambiguous wording in a report narrated by only one person. Mentioning it in the Quran and Sunnah would have been among the most important matters, because of people’s need to know