Thus, one who rejects the term may be asked: By “direction” do you mean something existent and created? In that case, Allah is certainly not inside created things. Or do you mean by it what is beyond the universe? If so, there is no doubt that Allah is above the universe. Likewise, one who says, “Allah is in a direction,” should be asked: Do you intend by that that Allah is above the universe, or do you mean that He is contained within something He has created? If you mean the first, it is true; if you mean the second, it is false.

From this it becomes clear that the word “direction” itself is not found in the Qur’an or the Sunnah. Accordingly, it ought neither to be affirmed nor categorically denied, for both affirmation and negation carry the pitfalls mentioned earlier. Indeed, the mere fact that affirming the term allows opponents to ascribe to the advocates of Allah’s transcendence beliefs they do not hold would be reason enough to avoid it.

By the same token, one should not deny the term “direction” out of the mistaken idea that affirming Allah’s exaltedness necessarily entails affirming a direction, for such denial involves several hazards: among them, rejecting the conclusive proofs of His exaltedness and denying that the believers will see their Lord on the Day of Resurrection. The Muʿtazilah and the Shiʿah explicitly denied that beatific vision, and Ibn al-Muṭahhar the Shiʿi, in his Minhāj, justified that denial by saying, “Because He is not in a direction!” As for the Ashʿarīs—or more precisely their later adherents—who affirmed the vision, they contradicted themselves when they said, “He will be seen, but not in a direction,” meaning not above.

Shaykh al-Islam states in Minhāj al-Sunnah 2/252:
“Most people—both those who affirm the vision and those who deny it—maintain that the statement of these individuals is self-evidently false, just as is their view on divine speech. For this reason Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī notes that, on the matters of speech and vision, no Muslim group holds their position.”

He then proceeds to refute the deniers among the Muʿtazilah and the Shiʿah with sound, robust arguments; consult them, for they are invaluable.

In sum, concerning the term “direction”: if by it one intends a real existent other than Allah, then it is created, while Allah—exalted is He—is above His creation; nothing of the created order contains or encompasses Him, for He is wholly separate from