because those sources contain the hadith with the very wording whose falsity he categorically asserted. May Allah deal with him as he deserves!
If a student of knowledge were to turn this fool’s categorical assertion back against him, and decisively declare invalid the wording whose authenticity he claimed, he would have the better of him; for he has some reports containing, “Where is Allah?” through chains more numerous and sounder than those of his wording. How much more so when he also has the hadith of Muʿāwiyah ibn al-Ḥakam—may Allah be pleased with him—which a great many hadith scholars, both early and later, have authenticated, as noted above! Yet we see no contradiction requiring us to give preference to one report over another, as previously explained. This is also the position taken by the eminent Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—in Iʿlām al-Muwaqqiʿīn (3:521, Kurdī edition). Having cited two of the reports mentioned above—“Who is your Lord?” and “Where is Allah?”—he said:
“The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, asked, ‘Where is Allah?’ The person he asked replied that Allah is in heaven. He approved the answer and thereby knew that he had true faith in his Lord, and he did not find fault with this question. Yet, to the Jahmite, asking, ‘Where is Allah?’ is like asking: What is His colour? What is His taste? What is His genus? What is His origin?—and similar impossible and invalid questions!”
He spoke the truth—may Allah have mercy on him—and struck at the heart of the matter. You can see how this simpleton persists in declaring this authentic hadith—which the imams of the Muslims have authenticated, as explained above—to be false; nor does he stop there, but accuses them of anthropomorphism! Thus he says—may his mouth be shattered—(p. 187):
“Strange indeed, and astonishing: we see the anthropomorphists constantly repeating the wording, ‘Where is Allah?’ They do not realize (!) that this is an alteration by the narrators, a mistaken paraphrase of the Prophet’s words, peace and blessings be upon him—especially after this hadith has been established in sources other than Muslim with the wording, ‘Do you testify that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah...?’ This is completely different, or at the very least differs in a manner that does not convey the meaning, ‘Where is Allah?’”
He then reinforced his categorical assertion that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, did not say these words, whose authenticity has been established by the imams. That is only because they are devastating to the Jahmite innovators. By Allah, I do not know what to say about