and al-Istiʿāb, al-ʿIlm, and his other priceless works—when he reached the commentary on the ḥadith of the Divine Descent in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, he wrote:

“This ḥadith is sound; the ḥadith scholars are unanimous regarding its authenticity. It proves that Allah, exalted is He, is in heaven, upon the Throne, above the seven heavens, exactly as the mainstream community affirms, and it is one of their proofs against the Muʿtazilites. Among both the masses and the elite this is too well known to require further elaboration, for it is something they grasp by necessity: no one taught it to them, and no Muslim has ever denied it.”

327 – Abū ʿUmar also said:1

“The scholars among the Companions and the Followers whose explanations have reached us were unanimously agreed that the meaning of Allah’s words, ‘There is no secret conversation among three but that He is their fourth’ (Q 58:7), is that He is upon the Throne while His knowledge is in every place. No one whose opinion is considered authoritative dissented from them on this.”

303 – I say: This passage is an explicit rebuttal of what Imām al-Shawkānī asserted at the end of his Tuḥfah ⦗pp. 95–96, al-Majmūʿah al-Manīriyyah, vol. 2⦘—namely, that interpreting this verse, and the verse “He is with you wherever you are” (Q 57:4), as referring to His encompassing knowledge is merely one branch of figurative interpretation that conflicts with the path of the Salaf and with what the Companions, the Followers, and their successors held.

Such was his claim, yet it seems he never came across this statement from Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, nor the earlier words of the leading imams—Sufyān al-Thawrī, Mālik, and Muqātil ibn Ḥayyān—who all interpreted the two verses exactly as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr reported the consensus of the Companions and those after them. Do not, therefore, be taken in by al-Shawkānī’s allegation of disagreement, for every scholar has his slip, and every thoroughbred its stumble.

328 – He also said: “The people of the Sunnah are unanimously agreed upon affirming the attributes that appear in the Book and the Sunnah, accepting them in their literal sense and not metaphorically, while refraining from asking how any of them are.”