citing this very report immediately after the biography of Ḥarb al-Karmānī: “The scholars were outraged at anyone who denied this great distinction that is unique to the Master of humanity, and it is inconceivable that Mujāhid would have said such a thing except on the basis of explicit transmission….”

He then lists yet more scholars, in addition to those already named, who accepted the report. When you finish reading that passage you imagine that the Shaykh has moved from rejection to endorsement, for he says that such a statement can only be made on the strength of explicit revelation. But only a few lines later he qualifies his words, writing:

“However, what is firmly established in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections is that the Praiseworthy Station is the universal intercession that is exclusive to our Prophet ﷺ.”

I say: this, beyond any doubt, is the correct interpretation of the Praiseworthy Station, as confirmed by the very ḥadiths the author alludes to. It is the view declared sound by Imām Ibn Jarīr in his Tafsīr (15/99), followed by al-Qurṭubī (10/309), and it is the only interpretation cited by the ḥadith-scholar Ibn Kathīr, who reproduces the relevant narrations. Indeed, it is what is authentically reported from Mujāhid himself through two separate chains recorded by Ibn Jarīr.

As for the other report attributed to him, it possesses no reliable chain at all. On p. 125 the author says it is transmitted through Layth ibn Abī Sulaym, ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, Abū Yaḥyā al-Qattāt, and Jābir ibn Yazīd. The first two became confused narrators; the latter two are weak—indeed the last is abandoned and accused of fabrication.

I cannot understand why the compiler—may Allah pardon him—did not settle on this conclusion and state categorically, as he previously did, that the report is repudiated. It attributes to Allah the act of seating someone upon the Throne, which implies His settling upon it, something for which no sound evidence exists; therefore it is unlawful to affirm it or ascribe it to Allah. For that reason the author himself censures anyone, after the first three generations, who says that Allah’s istiwāʾ means “settling,” as you will see under biography 140 – Abū Aḥmad al-Qaṣṣāb. He states explicitly in biography 161—