the universe, his claim contradicts the consensus of the early generations and conflicts with the Book and the Sunnah, as has been explained at length elsewhere. Likewise, those among the people of hadith who have refrained from denying this have done so only because of their insufficient knowledge of the meanings of the Book and the Sunnah and of the statements of the early generations.

If someone denies “direction,” intending thereby to deny that created things encompass Him or that He depends upon them, this is true. Yet most of them (1) do not stop there. Rather, they deny that the Lord of the worlds is above the Throne, that Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was taken up to Allah, that anything ascends to Him or descends from Him, or that He is separate from the universe. At times they maintain that He is neither separate from it nor within it (2), thereby describing Him in terms applicable to the nonexistent and the impossible. At other times they maintain that He indwells every existent thing or that He is the very existence of every existent thing, along with similar claims made by those who negate the divine attributes and those who affirm divine indwelling] (3).