Clarification of the issue of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) rising above the Throne, and the refutation of the Sufis who claim the unity of existence.

The Shaykh : It did not dwell in it nor take it as a home for Him; rather, the opposite of that is what the previous verse teaches us: This informs us that the Throne is greater than all created things and is the ceiling of Paradise, the Throne of the Most Merciful, the ceiling of Paradise, as stated in "Sahih al-Bukhari": . So, if we know that place is derived from the universe, and the universe is created, and the universe was not created before, whereas Allah was and there was nothing with Him, then from this perspective, He is now as He was. I hope you pay attention to this qualification I mentioned earlier: "from this perspective," meaning in terms of the fact that He was not in a place as He was before He created the heavens and the earth. So now, from this perspective, He is as He was, ancient and eternal, before He created the created things; He was not in a place, so He is now as He was. But we do not say, as the extremists among the Sufis do, who add to the Prophetic hadiths by appending to the previously mentioned hadith of 'Imran ibn Husayn, which says "Allah was and there was nothing with Him," an addition by al-Ghazali in "Ihya" and others, which corrupts this authentic hadith by saying, "Allah was and there was nothing with Him, and He is now as He was." I said this added phrase, but it is not connected to the authentic hadith, because this connection invalidates the correct beliefs of Muslims and supports the false unity of existence claimed by some extremists among the Sufis. Pay attention: "Allah was and there was nothing with Him, and He is now as He was," meaning there is nothing with Him. Is it true that there is nothing with Him? Obviously, there are things gathered under the term "creation." Created things are of various types: humans, animals, and inanimate objects, and inanimate objects are divided into many species: the heavens, the earths, the mountains, and the rivers. These are things, so one cannot say "there was nothing with Him." "Allah was and there was nothing with Him, and He is now as He was" leads to a prohibited matter from two prohibited matters, and the sweetest of them is bitter, as they say. The first prohibited matter is to consider that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) did not create anything. The second prohibited matter is that we cannot deny that Allah created everything. This is the text of the Noble Qur'an: How is it, while He is the Creator of everything, that He is now as He was? He was and there was nothing with Him, and now He has brought these created things into existence. The interpretation of the extremists among the Sufis is "It is not He but He," meaning these created things are Allah. In that case, this false phrase becomes valid according to this extreme Sufi interpretation, meaning these created things that we see, in the expression of the Sufis, are manifestations of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He), so they are from Him. Therefore, they say, "Everything you see with your eye is Allah." So "He is now as He was" means there is no Creator and no created thing, but only one thing. Therefore, in their tawhid (the oneness of Allah), they say, "It is not He but He." Rather, they explicitly invalidate the tawhid brought by all the messengers: "There is no god but Allah." This is the tawhid of the common people, not the tawhid of the elite. The tawhid of the elite is "It is not He but He," and the tawhid of the elite of the elite is "He is He," meaning there is no Creator and no created thing. In summary, this is the matter. Yes.

The questioner: But it wasn't ...?

The Shaykh : The Throne was not eternal; it is among the first of the created things.

The questioner: What was the first creation before the Throne?

The Shaykh : There was nothing with Him; Allah was and there was nothing with Him.

The questioner: ... [Was He] rising above the Throne?

The Shaykh : That is where the error lies, and you have reminded me now. I was going to say that these people interpreted "istawa" (rose) to mean "istawla" (dominated), and that leads to the word I spoke of, "the slave," which they do not want, of course. If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) was not dominating before He created any created thing, He is dominating it. So I said, and I placed the subject before the predicate and did not bring the predicate, I said, "Why did they interpret 'istawa' to mean 'istawla'?" Their thinking is that they do not want to confine Allah to a place. We have now established that Allah, in terms of place, is as He was, and He was and there was nothing with Him, so there was no place. And when He created the created things and place came into existence, He did not change (Glorified and Exalted is He) nor did He settle in this place. This is the refutation of the doubt that compelled them to interpret "istawa" to mean "istawla." But what did they gain from this interpretation? Nothing at all, and here is the explanation. They were told that the verses affirming the rising of the Most Merciful above His Throne are numerous, among them Now, a question was posed to them: Well, before He rose above the Throne, as per the explicit text of the Noble Qur'an, was He not already above it?

The questioner: He was present with the Throne.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: The Throne was present before creation.

The Shaykh : He created the heavens and the earth; the Throne was present before the heavens and the earth, meaning He created the heavens and the earth after the Throne.

The Shaykh : The Throne is the oldest. Some scholars, in answer to the question "What is the first created thing of Allah (Mighty and Majestic)?", have two opinions: some say the Throne, and some say the Pen. I adhere to this opinion because there is a text: , But some scholars who thought that the Throne was created before the Pen say, "No, the Pen was created after the Throne." The important point is that there is nothing eternal except Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Do you understand? And this means it is an Islamic belief; whoever does not believe in it is a disbeliever. But there is disagreement about whether the first created thing was the Throne or the Pen. If you look at the verse: "He created the heavens and the earth in two days, then He rose above the Throne," it means that the Throne was present before the creation of the heavens and the earth. So if we assume that He created the heavens and the earth, or that Allah created them, in the blink of an eye, although He says "for a great purpose" in two days, well, after the two days He rose above the Throne, meaning He dominated it. Was He not dominating before the two days? If they say He was not dominating, they have attributed incapacity to Him. How can it be conceived that Allah, the Creator of everything and the Manager of everything, is attributed to incapacity? No Muslim says this. When this question was posed to them by the Salafi scholars: How do you say "then He dominated" when you have attributed to Allah incapacity and that He was not dominating this great creation, which is the noble Throne? They say, "No, we want to say that His domination is not like the domination of humans." Yes... They returned to the Salafi interpretation: "Istawa" means "Istala" (rose high), but the rising of Allah above His Throne is not like the rising of kings above their thrones. The matter ends here, and this is how it must be said regarding all the divine attributes. And our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) has affirmed this in more than one noble verse. For example, He says in the surah that equals...