As for Abū Muḥammad Ibn Qudāmah, the Maqdisī imam, he is too well-known to need an introduction.

ʿAbd al-Khāliq ibn ʿAbd al-Salām—Abū Muḥammad al-Baʿlabakkī—was a jurist and scholar distinguished for worship and humility. He died in 696 AH at the age of 93.

168 – al-Qurṭubī (d. 671 AH)

The eminent scholar Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī, author of the celebrated large-scale Qurʾānic commentary.

350 – Commenting on the Almighty’s words, “then He rose over the Throne,” he said:

“This is an issue whose scholarly discussion we have set out in our book al-Asnā fī Sharḥ al-Asmāʾ al-Ḥusnā, where we mentioned fourteen different opinions. He then said: The first generation of the Salaf—may Allah be pleased with them—never spoke of denying direction, nor did they utter anything of that sort. Rather, they and the generality of people plainly affirmed it for Allah, just as His Book has spoken and His messengers have conveyed. None of the righteous predecessors denied that His rising over the Throne is real; He singled out the Throne because it is the greatest of His creations. What they did not know was the manner of that rising, for no one knows how it truly is. Imām Mālik said: ‘al-istiwaʾ (rising) is known—meaning in language; its modality is unknown, and asking about it is an innovation.’”

Al-Qurṭubī also said in al-Asnā:

“The majority of the earlier and later dialectical theologians maintain that once one affirms the Creator—exalted is He—to be transcendent of direction and distinction, it necessarily follows, according to the great bulk of the early scholars and their leading successors, that He must be declared free of any direction whatsoever. Thus, for them there is no ‘above’ with regard to Him, because they hold that if He were confined to a direction He would have to be in a place and spatial dimension, and place and space necessitate motion and rest, differentiation, change, and origination. Such is the position of the theologians.”

I say: This, indeed, is the view adopted by those who deny the Lord’s exaltedness, turning away from the import of the Book and the Sunnah, the statements of the Salaf, and the innate nature of creation. What they claim to be a necessary consequence applies only to bodies, whereas Allah—there is nothing like unto Him. The implications of the explicit texts are true, yet we do not employ any wording unless it is transmitted. Moreover, we do not concede that the Creator’s being over His Throne, above the heavens