"Woe to you! Do you know what Allah is?"
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
May Allah reward you. Your Eminence the Shaykh, the questioner says: The hadithMishkat al-Masabih 5727?
The Shaykh:
It is a clarification from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). This is a clarification. Yes, continue.
The questioner:
Does this hadith indicate the permissibility of likening (tashbih) in some cases?
The Shaykh:
It indicates the permissibility of approximation. The hadith permits approximating absent concepts with present things for the sake of approximation, not because this is exactly like that. Rather, this is a matter of approximation and giving examples, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) compared the seeing of Allah to the seeing of the moon and the sun for the sake of approximation.[Al-'Ankabut 29:43] So Allah gives examples, and the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) gives examples to make concepts clear to understanding by likening them to something they know, so that the matter becomes clear. Yes.
May Allah reward you. Your Eminence the Shaykh, the questioner says: The hadith
Woe to you! Do you know how great God is? His Throne is above the heavens thus (indicating with his fingers something like a dome over him)
ويحك أتدري ما الله إن عرشه على سماواته لهكذا وقال بأصابعه مثل القبةThe Shaykh:
It is a clarification from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). This is a clarification. Yes, continue.
The questioner:
Does this hadith indicate the permissibility of likening (tashbih) in some cases?
The Shaykh:
It indicates the permissibility of approximation. The hadith permits approximating absent concepts with present things for the sake of approximation, not because this is exactly like that. Rather, this is a matter of approximation and giving examples, just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) compared the seeing of Allah to the seeing of the moon and the sun for the sake of approximation.
And these examples We present to the people, but none will understand them except those of knowledge.
وَتِلْكَ الْأَمْثَالُ نَضْرِبُهَا لِلنَّاسِ وَمَا يَعْقِلُهَا إِلَّا الْعَالِمُونَ
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [48 /84] حديث: " ويحك أتدري ما الله؟ إن عرشه على سماواته لهكذا وقال بأصابعه.. | الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.