—“Do not grieve; Allah is certainly with us. What do you think of two when Allah is their third?”

By Allah, we hold it certain that no one could overpower them or do them harm, and that is exactly what happened. The pursuers never caught sight of them, even though nothing physical blocked the view: there was no spider’s web, as some claim, no dove perched at the cave’s mouth, no tree growing across the entrance. It was simply Allah’s care, for Allah was with them.

The same lesson appears in His words—exalted be He—to Moses and Aaron, when He commissioned them both to face Pharaoh:

“They said, ‘Our Lord, we fear that he may act hastily against us or transgress.’ He said, ‘Do not fear; I am indeed with you both; I hear and I see’” (Tā Hā 20:45–46).

Allahu akbar!—“I am indeed with you both; I hear and I see.” If Allah is with them, could Pharaoh and his troops possibly harm them? Never. This is a special form of maʿiyyah, explicitly tied to His hearing and seeing: “I am indeed with you both; I hear and I see.”

The upshot is that we must believe that Allah is with His creation, yet He is above His Throne. No one rivals Him in His attributes, no one even approaches Him in His perfections; and you must not let the question arise, in your own mind or anyone else’s, “How can Allah be with us while He is in heaven?”

We reply: Allah is not to be compared with His creatures, and even among created things elevation and accompaniment are not mutually exclusive. If someone asks, “Where is the moon?” we answer, “In the sky,” as Allah says: “and He placed the moon therein as a light” (Nūḥ 71:16). Should he ask, “Where are the stars?” we say, “In the sky.” Yet Arabic speakers naturally remark, “We travelled on and the moon was with us,” or, “We kept going with the moon and the stars alongside us,” even though the moon is high in the sky.