—namely, the Prophet’s ﷺ being seated upon the Throne: we neither repudiate it nor dispute about it, and we do not say anything concerning a report that confers a virtue upon the Prophet ﷺ.

Ibn Ṣāʿid died in 318 AH at the age of ninety. He was among the leading authorities in this field; he met the pupils of Mālik and Ḥammād ibn Zayd, and he authored and compiled works.

268 – I say: however, the ḥadith transmitted on this point is feeble, as the author himself made clear earlier at the end of notice 53. Likewise, the interpretation some have given to the Almighty’s words, “It may be that your Lord will raise you to a praised station” (17:79)—namely, that He will seat him ﷺ upon the Throne—contradicts what is found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere, where the Praised Station is identified as the Greatest Intercession. That explanation is a severed (maqṭūʿ) report, not traced back to the Prophet ﷺ; and even if it were sound as a mursal report it would prove nothing—so how when it is merely a severed statement halted at one of the Successors?

My amazement can scarcely cease at the zeal with which some early ḥadith scholars championed this flimsy ḥadith and this discredited narration, their excessive censure of whoever rejected it, and their suspicion of such a person’s creed! The author—may Allah have mercy on him—has listed in the original work the names of a group of them (pp. 124–126) and added others in his abridgement; and I sense that he was somewhat overawed by them, for he hesitates between opposing them and endorsing them. After he quoted the words of Abū Bakr al‐Najjād:

“If a man swore triple divorce that Allah will seat Muhammad ﷺ upon the Throne, I would say: you have spoken truly and your oath stands,”

he followed them with this excellent rejoinder:

“Observe—may Allah preserve you from caprice—how extremism led this muḥaddith to deem obligatory adherence to a discredited report, whereas today people reject the explicit aḥādīth affirming the divine elevation, and some tyrants even attempt to repudiate His words, ‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne’ (20:5).”

Thus he—may Allah have mercy on him—indicates that the correct path is the middle course between those who strip away and deny the attributes and those who go to extremes in affirming what has not been authenticated. Yet you find him elsewhere (p. 143) returning to that discredited report, celebrating it, and declaring that it contains a tremendous distinction unique to the Master of mankind ﷺ, saying:

“It is unlikely that Mujāhid would have said this except on the basis of transmitted instruction!”

I say: Grant that this is so; even then, in such a case it amounts to no more than being like a ḥadith or—