It seems to me that this ignorant detractor of the early generations sensed the gravity of the description he had just advanced and realized that it is untenable both according to revelation and to reason. Accordingly, he resorted to hoodwinking his readers with another expression that achieves the same hidden purpose, yet passes unnoticed by the general public. In his marginal notes on the aforementioned work of Ibn al-Jawzi (p. 127) he writes:

“Here is a matter of extreme importance: we absolutely do not say that Allah is present in every place—indeed, we deem whoever says so to be a disbeliever. Rather, we believe that Allah, exalted is He, exists without being bound to any place, for He is the Creator of place!”

I say: this statement flatly contradicts your previous declaration that Allah is not outside the universe, for outside the universe there is no place. If you are sincere in this new assertion, then you have been guided and have returned to the creed of the Salaf—the very creed whose adherents you have long accused of unbelief and anthropomorphism, such as Ibn Taymiyyah and, in lesser measure, people like myself. Otherwise, we will recite over you the Almighty’s words, “So woe to those who disbelieve, because of the Fire” (1), while reminding you of the common proverb: “If your house is made of glass, do not hurl stones at others!”

Among the baleful effects of the scholastic theologians and those beguiled by their philosophy—like that conceited Saqqāf who parrots them—is that they give no weight whatsoever to the labors of the hadith imams, their scholars, and their critics. They subject whatever those masters have graded—sound or weak—to the whims of their own desires: whatever appeals to them they accept and cite as evidence, even if it is weak, and whatever displeases them they reject, even if it is authentic! This attitude is glaringly obvious among both the earlier and the later members of their school. The clearest examples are Shaykh al-Kawtharī and ʿAbd Allah al-Ghumārī, for they declared weak