“Allah was, and there was nothing before Him. His Throne was upon the water; He wrote in the Record every single thing, and then He created the heavens and the earth.” In another wording: “and thereafter He created the heavens and the earth.”

This ḥadīth is reported in al-Bukhārī with three different phrasings:
– “Allah was, and nothing was before Him,”
– “and nothing other than Him existed,”
– “and nothing was with Him.” (1)

It is one and the same incident, and it is clear that the Prophet ﷺ uttered only one of these expressions, while the other two were transmitted according to meaning. The version that best accords with another rigorously authentic report is the one in which he would say in his supplication:

“You are the First—there is nothing before You; You are the Last—there is nothing after You; You are the Most High—there is nothing above You; and You are the Most Near—there is nothing beneath You.” (2)

His words here, “You are the First—there is nothing before You,” correspond to the wording, “Allah was, and there was nothing before Him.” I have discussed this ḥadīth, and others related to it, at length elsewhere.

Our purpose here is to address what some people imagine to be matters of consensus. This particular formulation is not found in the Book of Allah, and even if the ḥadīth were an explicit text in the sense claimed, it is not mass-transmitted. How many an authentic ḥadīth still occasions extensive debate over its meaning! All the more so when the aim of the report is other than what they maintain, and when this phrasing is unknown from the Companions, the Successors, and the leading scholars of the Muslims—so how can anyone allege a consensus about it, let alone a consensus that whoever rejects it is an unbeliever?

The consensus that is actually established is what the ummah knows Allah to have made clear in the Qur’an: that He created the heavens, the earth, and everything between them in six days, as He has stated in several verses. If someone were to claim consensus on this point, and to denounce as an unbeliever anyone who denied it, his claim would have merit. Yet in Allah’s own words—that He created the heavens and the earth and what lies between them in six days—there is nothing that negates the existence of some created entity before them, nor anything that precludes His having created them from a pre-existent substance. Indeed, He has informed us that He created humankind and created the jinn, and that He fashioned man from a substance—moulded clay like pottery,