If it is said, “What do you make of His words, ‘Do you feel secure from Him who is in the heaven?’ (67:16)?” the reply is: they mean that He is above the heaven, upon the Throne—just as He said, “Travel through the earth” (9:2), meaning “upon the earth,” and He said, “I will surely crucify you upon the trunks of date-palms” (20:71). In the same way, “Do you feel secure from Him who is in the heaven?” refers to the One who is above it.
If it is further asked, “What do you say about His words, ‘He is Allah in the heavens and on the earth’ (6:3)?” the answer is: some Qur’an-reciters pause at “in the heavens” and then resume, “and on the earth He knows….” Whichever reading one adopts, if someone were to say, “So-and-so is king in Syria and Iraq,” the statement would show that his sovereignty extends over Syria and Iraq, not that his very person is located in them. —Up to where he said: we have been commanded to raise our hands toward Him, lifting them toward the Throne upon which He is established.
Al-Ṭabarī was a leading figure among the theologians. He authored numerous works and kept company with Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī. The ḥadith master Abū al-Qāsim mentioned him in The Classes of the Disciples of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and praised him.1 “I do not know when he died.”2
- Ibn Sufyān (?–355 AH)
306- Shaykh of the Mālikīs, Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Shubban al-Miṣrī, said in his book Naming the Narrators from Mālik:
“Praise belongs to Allah, the One most deserving of praise from the outset, the very first3 to be thanked; the One, the Self-Sufficient, who has neither consort nor child; exalted is He above every likeness, without peer or equal. He is established over His Throne; He is near through His knowledge; His knowledge encompasses all things, and His decree prevails over every predestined matter.”
Ibn Shubban died in Egypt in 355 AH; he was among the leading imams.
- Ibn Baṭṭah (304–387 AH)
307- The ascetic Imam Abū ʿAbd Allah Ibn Baṭṭah al-ʿUkbarī, the shaykh of the Ḥanbalīs, said in his book—