Why do the Asha'irah and the Maturidiyyah deny the rising of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) above His Throne?

The questioner : The doubt regarding the rising. So my question is, what does this doubt about the rising contradict? Why are they... it is said of the Lord of the Worlds.

The Shaykh : The same. The fundamental problem in the figurative interpretation of all the verses of the attributes and the hadiths of the attributes is likening Allah to creation.

The questioner : Is likening Allah to creation this main problem?

The Shaykh : Absolutely not. I mean, everyone who denies one of the attributes of Allah, including the science of theology—excuse me, the divine speech—and including the rising of Allah above His Throne, is based on likening Allah to creation. As they predict, it is a false likening. If it does not result in falsehood.

The questioner : It means

The Shaykh : It is false. So if we leave it, let us interpret, or let us deny the divine attributes. They denied the rising of Allah above His Throne because they likened Him, as we said first. They said this means our Lord is in a place. But it is known with certainty that Allah was, and there was nothing with Him, neither time nor place. So it is not permissible for us to say Glory be to Allah! Is this our saying, or is it the explicit Qur'an in many noble verses? So this means such and such. Do you know? They interpret the rising as seizing power. And the strange thing, very strange indeed.

The questioner : The reality of figurative interpretation is that...

The Shaykh : The very strange thing is that they are like the common speech: "We were under the rain, then we were under the gutter"

The questioner : ... their school of figurative interpretation harms them more.

The Shaykh : It harms them more than it benefits them. That is, they think they are interpreting the text to avoid likening Allah to creation, but they have certainly fallen into likening Him. Why? First, this is the Throne upon which our Lord rose. It is above what minds can conceive, for it is the greatest of created things. The Footstool is mentioned in the Noble Qur'an, and as stated in the hadith, it is like a ring cast into a desert relative to what? Relative to the Throne. So, the rising of Allah above the Throne, if we understand it by likening it to creation, is invalid. It is as if a king rises above his throne. What does that bring about? It is said that there is likening here. Our Lord is greater than everything; He is All-Encompassing and All-Knowing, as in the Noble Qur'an. And His Throne is the greatest of the created things that the Lord of the Worlds created. So, it is impossible to conceive of any likening whatsoever. But they imagined likening, and they actually fell into what they imagined, which is a very ugly likening. When they said, "The Most Merciful rose above the Throne," they meant "He took control!" Allah is greater. "Took control" implies that for a moment of time, even a moment, He was not in control. And the strange thing is that they use a verse of poetry as evidence, when one of them says
"Bishr rose over Iraq *** without a sword and without spilled blood"
Bishr rose over Iraq. Who was over Iraq before him? Someone else, so he seized power over it after him.
So if we interpret as meaning He seized power, who was seizing power over the Lord of the Worlds before Him? Then seizing power has the meaning of overcoming. Who overcomes the Lord of the Worlds? Even the Lord of the Worlds reminds me of a story in the Gospel, and how ugly it is, that it said the Lord of the Worlds entered into a wrestling match with our master Ya'qub (peace be upon him), a wrestling match like how humans wrestle. And Ya'qub did not leave his Lord a way out except that he took from him an admission that he would bless him in his children. Who overcomes the Lord of the Worlds? So the Lord of the Worlds won. Here they know that the problem that is returned to them, do you know what they said? They said, "We say 'rose' means 'seized power,' but we remove the meaning of overcoming." Yes, I see.

The questioner : Yes, as they please, I mean.

The Shaykh : For what purpose? To get rid of it. Well, remove the meaning of likening Allah to creation from the saying of the Lord of the Worlds . This is more comfortable for you and safer for you, your religion, and your creed. Say "He rose" with a rising that befits His perfection. Since you brought a phrase from yourselves and said it to get rid of the problem you threw yourselves into by removing the meaning of overcoming, when they removed the meaning of overcoming from "seized power," they also denied the word "seized power." So if you leave it with the Qur'anic text, supported and confirmed by dozens of texts from the Book and the Sunnah, that means He rose, a rising that befits His majesty, greatness, and perfection, coupled with the verse .
So the answer is that they themselves committed likening Allah to creation to escape likening Allah to creation, so they fell into denial of the divine attributes. So safety, as it came in the previously mentioned verse, is , meaning we combine the affirmation, which is , and the transcendence, which is . The affirmation, we say . The transcendence is , meaning a rising that befits His majesty and His perfection.