The Answer to One Who Says That Allah Intervenes Between His Creation

Praise be to Allah alone, and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and his Companions. As for what follows:
Questions have repeatedly been posed regarding those who say that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, intervenes between His creation and is mixed with them, and that this is the meaning of general presence. They also compared this to His saying, the Exalted: [Surat al-Qasas: 44] and His saying: [Surah Al-Imran: 44]. The meaning of this, according to them, is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was not with them, but rather Allah, the Exalted, was with them by His essence; because He is in every place, as they claim.
Since the one who holds this view has misunderstood and committed a grave error, contrary to the correct creed brought by the Qur'an and the Sunnah and believed in by the Salaf of this Ummah, I saw it necessary to clarify the truth and elucidate what was hidden from this speaker in this great matter, which concerns the names and attributes of Allah. Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is described as He has described Himself and as His Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) has described Him, in a manner befitting His majesty, without asking how an attribute is, without comparing Allah to creation, without distortion of a text's meaning, and without denial of the divine attributes. As He, the Exalted, said: [Surah Ash-Shura: 11]. And among what is established in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and upon which the Salaf of the Ummah have reached scholarly consensus, is that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is above His creation, distinct from them, rising above the Throne, in a manner of rising above the Throne befitting His majesty, not resembling His creation in their rising above the Throne. And He, Glorified and Exalted is He, is with them by His knowledge; nothing of them is hidden from Him. This is what the Qur'an indicates with the most eloquent and clearest expressions, and what the Sunnah indicates with authentic and explicit hadiths.
Among the Qur'anic evidence that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is in the sky above His creation, rising above the Throne, is His saying, the Exalted: [Surah Fatir: 10] and His saying: [Surah Al-Imran: 55], [Surah Al-Ma'arij: 4], [Surah Al-Furqan: 59], [Surah Al-Mulk: 16] [Surah Al-Mulk: 17] and His saying: [Surah Ta-Ha: 5], [Surah Ghafir: 36-37] verses.
As for the evidence from the Sunnah, there are in the authentic and good hadiths what cannot be counted except with difficulty, such as the story of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) ascension to his Lord, and in the hadith of ruqyah (healing by Qur'anic recitation) narrated by Abu Dawud and others: the hadith. And his saying in the hadith of the wild goats: narrated by Ahmad, Abu Dawud, and others. And his saying in the authentic hadith to the girl: narrated by Muslim in his Sahih, and similar to these are the hadiths established from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), which provide certain knowledge that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) conveyed that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is on His Throne, and that He is above the sky, as Allah created all nations, Arab and non-Arab, in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance and in Islam, with that innate natural disposition, except those whom the Shayatin (devils) carried away from their fitrah.
Then, from the Salaf, there are statements on this matter that, if gathered, would amount to hundreds or thousands. And there is not in the Book of Allah, nor in the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), nor from any of the Salaf of the Ummah, neither from the Companions nor from the Tabi'un who followed them in excellence, nor from the Imams who lived in the time of desires and disagreement, a single word that contradicts this, neither by explicit text nor by apparent meaning. None of them ever said that Allah is not in the sky, nor that He is not on the Throne, nor that He is by His essence in every place, nor that all places are equal in relation to Him, nor that He is neither inside the world nor outside it, nor that it is not permissible to point to Him physically with fingers or the like. Rather, it is established in the authentic hadith from Jabir ibn Abdullah that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered his great sermon on the Day of 'Arafah, in the greatest gathering the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) attended, he used to say: . More than once. And there are many similar instances.
As Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and others from the people of knowledge have clarified this. See al-Fatawa, vol. 5, p. 14.
The point is that this defective belief, which is held by the Jahmiyyah who deny the divine attributes and those who follow their path from the people of innovation, is among the most corrupt and most vile beliefs, and the greatest in affliction and diminishment of the Creator, Mighty and Majestic. We seek refuge in Allah from the deviation of hearts.
The evidence for the invalidity of this misguided school of thought is abundant, for sound reason and sound innate natural disposition reject it, let alone the established legal evidence. As for the argumentation of some of them using the verses mentioned earlier, it is among the most invalid of falsehoods, where they claimed that it is taken from the verses that Allah exists by His essence on the earth beside the Mount. Exalted is Allah above that by a great exaltation.
It was hidden from this speaker that presence (mu'ayyah) is of two types: general and specific. The specific is like His saying, the Exalted: [Surah An-Nahl: 128] and His saying, the Exalted: [Surah At-Tawbah: 40] and His saying: [Surah Ta-Ha: 46] and similar verses. So He, Glorified and Exalted is He, is with His prophets and His believing, God-fearing servants by victory and support, assistance and success, guidance and sufficiency, care and guidance. As he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in what his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) narrated from him, saying: . And the meaning of this is not that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is the limbs of the servant—Exalted is Allah above that by a great exaltation—rather, the intended meaning is His guidance and success for him, in all the limbs of the servant, as the other narration explains, where He, the Exalted, said: So it is clarified by this, Glorified and Exalted is He, that the intended meaning of His saying: "I was his hearing, etc.," is His success and guidance for him and His protection of him from falling into what angers Him.
As for general presence, its meaning is complete encompassing and knowledge. This presence is mentioned in many verses, such as His saying: [Surah Al-Mujadilah: 7] and His saying: [Surah Al-Hadid: 4] and His saying: [Surah Al-A'raf: 7] and His saying: [Surah Yunus: 61] and other verses. So He, Mighty and Majestic, is rising above the Throne, in the manner befitting His perfection and majesty, and He encompasses His creation with knowledge, and is a Witness over them wherever they are, and wherever they are, on land or sea, in night or day, in houses or deserts. All are equal in His knowledge, and under His sight and hearing. He hears their speech, sees their place, and knows their secrets and their private conversations. As He, the Exalted, said: [Surah Hud: 5] and His saying, the Exalted: [Surah Ar-Ra'd: 10] and He said: [Surah At-Talaq: 12] So there is no deity except Him and no Lord besides Him.
And He, Glorified and Exalted is He, began the verses of general presence with knowledge and ended them with knowledge, so that His servants know that the intended meaning is His knowledge of their conditions and their other affairs, not that He, Glorified and Exalted is He, is mixed with them in their houses, their bathrooms, and other places of theirs. Exalted is Allah above that by a great exaltation.
The statement that the meaning of presence is His mixing with creation by His essence is what is said by the people of pantheism (ahdath al-hulul), who claim that their object of worship is in every place by His essence, and they purify Him from rising above the Throne and being above His creation, and they did not protect Him from the ugliest and most filthy places. May Allah disfigure them and humiliate them. The Imams of the righteous Salaf, such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, Ishaq ibn Rahawayh, Abu Hanifah al-Nu'man, and others, and those after them from the Imams of guidance, such as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, the scholar Ibn al-Qayyim, and the Hafiz Ibn Kathir, and others, have addressed the refutation of them.
And when this is clarified, it is not taken from His saying: [Surah Al-Hadid: 4] and what came in the meaning of it from the verses, that He is mixed and blended with the created things, neither apparently nor in reality, and the word "with" (ma'a) does not indicate this in any way. The utmost it indicates is companionship, concurrence, and parallelism in a matter. And this conjunction is in every place according to its context. Abu 'Umar al-Talimanki, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "The Muslims from the people of the Sunnah have reached scholarly consensus that the meaning of His saying, the Exalted: [Surah Al-Hadid: 4] and similar in the Qur'an, is that it is His knowledge, and that Allah, the Exalted, is above the heavens by His essence, rising above the Throne, as His Book and the scholars of the Ummah have spoken, and the prominent Imams from the Salaf did not differ that Allah is on His Throne above His heavens." And Abu Nasr al-Sijzi said: "Our Imams, Sufyan al-Thawri, Malik, Hammad ibn Salimah, Hammad ibn Zayd, Sufyan ibn 'Uyaynah, al-Fudayl, Ibn al-Mubarak, Ahmad, and Ishaq, are in agreement that Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, is above the Throne by His essence and His knowledge is in every place." And Abu 'Umar Ibn 'Abd al-Barr said: "The scholars of the Companions and the Tabi'un from whom interpretation was transmitted agreed, saying in the interpretation of His saying, the Exalted: [Surah Al-Mujadilah: 7] the verse, that He is on the Throne, and His knowledge is in every place, and no one who is cited as an authority contradicted them in that."
And al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir (may Allah have mercy on him) said regarding the statement of the Exalted: [Al-Hadid: 4], meaning a Watcher and Witness over your deeds, wherever you are and wherever you may be, on land or sea, in night or day, in houses or in deserts; all are equal in His knowledge and under His sight and hearing. He hears your speech, sees your location, and knows your secrets and your private conversations, as the Exalted said: [Hud: 5]. And the Exalted said: [Ar-Ra'd: 10]. There is no deity but Him and no Lord other than Him.
And he said in his interpretation of the verse in Surat al-Mujadilah: [Al-Mujadilah: 7], meaning whoever keeps a secret, [Al-Mujadilah: 7], meaning He is the One who looks upon them, hearing their speech, their secrets, and their private conversations. And His messengers also record what they whisper, along with Allah’s knowledge of it and His hearing of it, as the Exalted said: [At-Tawbah: 78]. And the Exalted said: [Az-Zukhruf: 80]. For this reason, more than one scholar has reported the consensus that the meaning of this verse is the presence of His knowledge (Glorified and Exalted is He). There is no doubt about the intention of that, but His hearing, along with His knowledge, encompasses them, and His sight penetrates them. So He, Glorified and Exalted is He, is the One who looks upon His creation, and nothing of their affairs is hidden from Him.
The words of the Salaf on this matter are too numerous to enumerate. The intention is to clarify that this belief, which is the claim that Allah is in every place by His Essence, and that the meaning of His statement [Al-Hadid: 4] is that He is with them by His Essence, and that it is not permissible to point to Him, is a claim of extreme fallacy and invalidity, as is clear from the many explicit proofs, some of which have been mentioned previously, and its invalidity is clear from the consensus of the scholars, which was transmitted from them by the Imams mentioned earlier.
And with this, it becomes clear that those who claim the indwelling (Hulul), meaning the indwelling of Allah, Glorified and Exalted, among His creation by His Essence, and whoever says what they say, have deviated from the truth and strayed from the right path, and they have spoken about Allah contrary to the truth, and they have interpreted the verses regarding presence (Mu'ayyah) other than the interpretation stated by the scholars. We seek refuge in Allah from abandonment and from speaking about Allah without knowledge, and we ask Him for steadfastness upon the truth and guidance to the path of righteousness. He is the One capable of that and the One who has power over it. And may Allah send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and his Companions.