The following question was posed to Shaykh al-Na’san in January of 2017:
It has become common on some people’s tongues to ask another, in order to test if his creed is sound or not: “Where is Allāh?” If the respondent answers: {And He is with you wherever you are} (Surah Al-Hadīd 57:4), the other replies: “This is a corrupt, deviant creed! The answer must be: ‘In the heaven, above the Throne,’” citing as evidence His statement: {The Most Merciful [who is] above the Throne established} (Surah Tā Hā 20:5). Is this correct?
The Shaykh answered:
All praise is to Allāh, Lord of the Worlds, and may the most perfect prayers and peace be upon our master Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. To proceed:
The answer to the question: {And He is with you wherever you are}, is a correct answer. For the questioner to tell the respondent, “This is a corrupt, deviant creed,” is a serious statement, because the respondent answered with a verse from the Book of Allāh the Exalted.
If he answered with His statement:
And We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein
Surah Qāf 50:16
—it is a correct answer.
If he answered with His statement:
And it is He who is God in the heaven and God on the earth. And He is the Wise, the Knowing
Surah Al-Zukhruf 43:84
—it is a correct answer.
If he answered with His statement:
The Most Merciful [who is] above the Throne established
Surah Tā Hā 20:5
—it is a correct answer.
If he answered with His statement:
Do you feel secure that He who [holds authority] in the heaven would not cause the earth to swallow you? For then it would quake
Surah Al-Mulk 67:16
—it is a correct answer.
And if he answered with the hadīth narrated by Imām Muslim from Muʿāwiyah ibn al-Hakam al-Sulamī (may Allāh be pleased with him), who said:
I had a slave girl who used to tend my sheep in the direction of Uhud and Al-Jawwāniyyah. One day I went to check and found that a wolf had taken one of her sheep. I am a man from the sons of Ādam; I get upset as they get upset. So I slapped her. Then I came to the Messenger of Allāh (peace be upon him and his family and Companions), and he considered it a grave matter from me. I said, “O Messenger of Allāh, shall I not free her?”
He said, “Bring her to me.” So I brought her to him. He said to her, “Where is Allāh?”
She said, “In the heaven.”
He said, “Who am I?”
She said, “You are the Messenger of Allāh.”
He said, “Free her, for she is a believer.”
Sahih Muslim
Based on this, the answer to the question, if it is given with a verse from the Book of Allāh the Exalted, or with a hadīth from the narrations of our master, the Messenger of Allāh (peace be upon him and his family and Companions) pertaining to the subject, is a correct answer.
For we say nothing about the Exalted Essence except what Allāh the Exalted has said about Himself in His Majestic Book—without distortion (taʾwīl), without likening (tashbīh), without comparison (tamthīl), without negation (taʿtīl), and without inquiring into the modality (takyīf). And we say:
There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing
Surah Al-Shūrā 42:11
For Allāh the Exalted is not bounded by time or place; He is the Creator of time and place. So where was Allāh before the creation of the Throne? And what changed after the creation of the Throne? This is the answer, and Allāh the Exalted knows best.
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Shaykh Ahmad Sharīf al-Na’san