He wills among His servants, and what is meant is certainly not His own shade—exalted and sublime is He—for Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. It is impossible that Allah could be a shade cast by the sun, with the sun situated above Him and He standing between it and creation. Whoever understands the verse in that way is duller than a donkey, for it is inconceivable that Allah should be beneath anything He has created. He is the Most High, the Exalted, and He is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “His veil is light; were He to remove it, the radiance of His Face would burn up everything that His gaze reaches among His creation.” In other words, if Allah were to lift that veil—which itself consists of light, though a light far below the light of the Creator—the brilliance, majesty, and luminosity of His Face would incinerate everything encompassed by His sight, and His sight encompasses all things.

Thus, if He were to unveil it, that light would consume absolutely everything. How, then, could the shade in question be the shade of the Lord Himself? As I have already noted, some people are more ignorant than a donkey; they have no idea of the consequences of the interpretations they utter regarding the words of Allah and His Messenger, and it is impossible that the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—intended such a meaning.

Even the narration that mentions “the shade of His Throne” is open to discussion, for it is known that the Throne is larger than the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. The seven heavens and the seven earths, in relation to the Footstool, are like a ring thrown into a vast desert, and the Throne surpasses the Footstool as that desert surpasses the ring.