The Mu'tazilah's position on the rising of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) above the Throne

The Shaykh : The Mu'tazilah, when they denied that Allah rose above the Throne, this is another example, and it is related to the intellectual and creedal life that exists today; when they denied that Allah is above the Throne as He (the Exalted) explicitly said: ; why did they deny it? They said: Because if we say "He rose" meaning "He is above," it means we have placed Him in a location! And Allah is free from location. This, too, came from the narrowness of their minds and their thinking, and the truth, as Ibn al-Qayyim also said following Ibn Taymiyyah: The Mu'tazilah and their like, when they engage in figurative interpretation of the texts, their interpretation precedes the fact that they understood likening from the texts; they understood as the old man sits on his chair, or the sultan on his throne, and Allah (Mighty and Majestic) should not be like that; therefore, "He rose" does not mean "He is above."
The meaning of figurative interpretation is that likening preceded in their minds, otherwise, if they had not understood likening, they would have had no need for figurative interpretation, and I am detailing this for you due to the necessity of the issue. They understood that the Creator is like the created in the sense that if the chair were removed from the created, he would fall on his head, and Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: ; therefore, when Allah rose—meaning He is above the Throne—it is not like the human being; and so, in the words of some scholars on this specific point, there is poetry of jurists containing knowledge, and he said:
"And the Lord of the Throne is above the Throne, but *** without the description of settling and connection"
Meaning, He (the Exalted) said: , so He is free from the Throne in that He sits on it, and rather, He (Blessed and Exalted is He) has the attribute of being above, and as I have said repeatedly, the last of which was in a past season of Hajj when we met or a man from the scholars of al-Azhar came to us, and a long conversation took place between me and him on this issue, among which we said to him: Is it not the case that Allah was and there was nothing with Him? He said: Yes. We said: This is a point of agreement, there is no disagreement between us, and praise be to Allah. We said to him: Since Allah was and there was nothing with Him, was He in a location? He said: No. I said: And this is our belief, so when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) created the creation after it was non-existent, did He enter into it and mix with it like water in ice, or butter and cream in milk, or did He remain free from His creation? He said: He remained free from His creation. We said to him: Since He remained free from His creation, is He still not in a location as we agreed earlier? He said: Yes, He is not in a location. Therefore, Allah is not in a location before creation and after creation. I said to him: Is location something existent or non-existent, meaning is it imagined in the mind or does it have real existence? He said: It has real existence, a person sits in it and enjoys it, and so on. This was the first step in agreeing with him. And we chained our questions and agreed; we said: So when Allah created the creation, did He remain as He was, free from the creation and not in a location? He said: Yes. We said: When Allah created the creation, reason now judges with one of two things, and the Shari'ah is naturally the one that determines the stronger position, reason says: Either Allah (Mighty and Majestic) when He created the creation is above His creation, or He created His creation above His essence; is this possible? Only the first matter remained; which is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is above the created things.
This superiority that reason necessarily judges is what Allah informed us of in His Book and in the hadith of His Prophet. As for the Book, take any verses you wish, the most famous of these verses is the Throne Verse: ; meaning: He is above, and among them is a verse we read and pass by like the noble ones, and we do not notice that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) describes two things in it; the first thing: His essence (Blessed and Exalted is He) we describe with the attribute of being above, the second thing: He describes the believers that they believe in this attribute, and He says (Blessed and Exalted is He): ; meaning, the believer when he fears Allah, either permanently and eternally, which is from the attribute of the prophets and messengers, or sometimes; he notices when he fears Him and is afraid of Him that he fears a Lord who is above the Throne; therefore, this verse is among the verses that establish the superiority of Allah above His Throne and above all His creation.
I said to the Shaykh: What is your opinion; do you believe with me in this statement? He said: Yes. I said: So where is the location that you accuse us of? Location is the nature of the created, so Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is above the created things; meaning: where there is no location and no time; because Allah now, from this perspective, is as He was, and we chained the topic with him, Allah was and there was nothing with Him; was He in a location? He said: No. So when we chained the research with him, we reached points where we agreed, but neither he felt that we had established a location for Allah, nor I, too, felt that I had established a location for Allah. I said to him: So why do you accuse the Salafis who affirm what Allah described Himself with, including the attribute of being above and the attribute of being high, that it means they confined Him to a location? But the truth, reverse it and you will hit the mark; those who denied this attribute of Allah, and that He is above all His creations, are the ones who confined Him to a location, and the proof of what I say is the tongues of people today, between scholar and ignorant, there is no difference in that between them, they are the ones who say: "Allah is present in every place." Its aim is to deny what came in the Book of Allah and in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, its aim is that Allah is not above the created things; because above the created things is a place, as we explained to you; because Allah was non-existent and there was nothing with Him at all, so when He created the created things, with the creation of the created things, time came into existence and location came into existence; so He did not settle in this location and did not settle in this time; therefore, Allah is free from His creations, including time and including location, so Allah is not in a location, this is the creed of the people of the Sunnah or the Salafiyyah in explicit terms.
As for the masses of people today, they say two phrases, both of which lead to one misguidance; they say: "Allah is present in every place," or: "Allah is present in all existence." Allah is present in every place, this is a location, and no blame, the kitchen is a location, and other than the kitchen, too, is a location, so is Allah in all these locations? This is the meaning of people's words, Allah is present in every place; in the parking lots, in the dance halls, in the cinemas, and so on; location is a generic name that includes a pure place and an impure place, so when the one who says: Allah is present in every place; means he is in all these locations; the pure and the impure; although it is not permissible for the Muslim to say: that Allah is present in the pure locations, it is not permissible to say this; because if we say: Allah is present in the pure locations, we have confined Him, and He is free from all His creations, and He is above all the heavens.