> Sunni Response Ash'arism and Atheism: A Glimpse Into Two Parallel Madhaabs

[al-boriqee]

wasallam



I initiate this thread to enrich the understanding of the muslims and to solidify what some of them already can somewhat perceive but only in a general fashion. It may be funny, but it has a great element of tragedy in that those who follow a particular thought who claim to be the followers of rationalism, simply do not see the rational and conclusionary ramifications of what their school of thought leads to.

there are a number of sources in my mind that gear towards this topic, so part of my initiation of this thread is to make it a conglomerate thread for these sources inshallah

What is the Belief of Atheists


The following is a general extraction of certain slants of atheism

Theoretical atheism
Further information: Existence of God, Evolutionary origin of religions, and Evolutionary psychology of religion
Theoretical, or contemplative, atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, responding to common theistic arguments such as the argument from design or Pascal's Wager. The theoretical reasons for rejecting gods assume various psychological, sociological, metaphysical, and epistemological forms.


Epistemological arguments
Further information: Agnostic atheism, Theological noncognitivism
Epistemological atheism argues that people cannot know God or determine the existence of God. The foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism, which takes a variety of forms. In the philosophy of immanence, divinity is inseparable from the world itself, including a person's mind, and each person's consciousness is locked in the subject. According to this form of agnosticism, this limitation in perspective prevents any objective inference from belief in a god to assertions of its existence. The rationalistic agnosticism of Kant and the Enlightenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of atheism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Skepticism, based on the ideas of Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of God. The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic world-view.[48]

Other forms of atheistic argumentation that may qualify as epistemological, including logical positivism and ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful". Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals classify into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.[51][52]


Metaphysical arguments
Further information: Monism, Physicalism
Metaphysical atheism is based on metaphysical monism—the view that reality is homogeneous and indivisible. Absolute metaphysical atheists subscribe to some form of physicalism, hence they explicitly deny the existence of non-physical beings. Relative metaphysical atheists maintain an implicit denial of a particular concept of God based on the incongruity between their individual philosophies and attributes commonly applied to God, such as transcendence, a personal aspect, or unity. Examples of relative metaphysical atheism include pantheism, panentheism, and deism.[53]


However, our main concern is the metaphysical argument here as the bottom line proves, that what gives the argument of atheist a leg to stand upon is the fact that there was never some physical form of contact between the created and the Creator.

With that being said, this entire subject should stem from, and MUST ONLY stem from the issue of the relationship between the Creator and the Created.

The Issue: When Allah Created the Creation, Did He Do So Within Himself or Outside of Himself
i.e. does He dwell within the creation or is He seperate from it.

This argument actually stems from Imaam Ahmad in his Radd alal-Jahmiyyah and I haven't yet found the quote, if someone can find it, it will be greatly appreciated. Here is the subsequent information

The following was a reply to a brother who was trying to understand this very issue better. The reason why I quote the following is because it is integral to the topic at hand

It was asked

As-salamu alaikum.

May Allah reward you all for your patience and generosity.


You say that Allah has “Infinate grandness in His Attributes (not in His being)” – why do you say this about His Attributes but not His Being?

I would be interested to see evidence from the Quran, the Sunnah or the Righteous Salaf to justify your opinion.

So my reply was in the following

I'll divide this in two, the first is the rationale argument the second is its proof inshallah

1. the claim that He is infinite in His Attributes and NOT in His Being.

This means that His attributes are endless, they do not have a limit, His Mercy is infinate, His Benevolence is Infinate, His Power is infinate, His Might is Infinate, His Sovereignty, His Bounty infinate etc etc.

This also means that His actual being (dhaat) is limited. WHY? If Allah is unlimited in His being, then necessitates that His very Being consumes all that exists as this means that His actual being is unlimited consuming everything the creation and other than the creation and this is the very belief that was being promulgated among the jahmiyyah.

2. The proofs

Imaam Ahmad recorded in his radd all jahmiyyah in the chapter on the exposition regarding the denial of the jahmiyyah that lllah is not on His Throne, he mentioned that when he told Jahm about where is Allah, their reply was

"He is under the seven earths as He is on the throne; He is in heaven, on earth and in every place; there is no place where he is not, nor is He in one place to the exclusion of any other. And they quoted the verse: And He is God in the Heavens and on the Earth. "

Imaam Ahmad says in His radd

"We said: The Muslims know of many places where there is no trace whatsoever of the might of the Lord. They (jahm) said: And where is that? We replied: Your bodies, your insides and pigs’ insides, in privies and unclean places, in all of which there is no trace of the Lord’s might.

Allah told us that He is in Heaven, saying:

What are ye sure that He who is in Heaven will not cleave the Earth beneath you?..

Or are you sure that He who is in Heaven will not send against you a stone-charged whirl-wind? 67-16,17
And again:

...The good word riseth up to Him. 35-2

And again:

...O Jesus! Verily I will cause thee to die, and will take thee up to myself. 3-48
And again:
...But Allah took him up to Himself. 4-156
And again:
All beings in Heaven and in Earth are His, and they who are in His presence... 21-19
And again:
They fear their Lord who is above them... 16-52
And again:
...The Master of those ascents 70-3
And again:
...He is the High, the Great. 2-256

This then tells us that He is in Heaven.

The following verses show us that all beneath Him are villainaous: Verily the hypocrites shall be in the lowest abssy of the fire...4-144 And again: And they who believe not shall say, O our Lord! Show us those of the jinn and men who led us astray: both of them will we put under our feet that they be of the humbled. 41-29 We added: Do you not know that iblis has his place and the devils have theirs? Allah and Iblis can not be both in one place. The meaning of Allah’s word: ‘He is God in heaven and upon earth’ is that to him belong those in Heaven and those in earth; that He is on the throne and that His knowledge embracess all that lies beneath the throne; and that there is no place not embraced by His knowledge. "

Logically speaking, to claim the belief that Allah is unlimited in His being, then this by default entails that He is infused with, or envelopes or consumes the creation with His being and to have an opinion different than the opinion that I have claimed above is kufr of apostasy because this is not merely likening Allah to His creation, rather this is the saying of some of the Ibn Arabi sufis who stated that Allah is everywhere which provided for the basis of wahdatul-wujood and itihaad of the extreme Hallaji sufi esoteric sects among the sufis.

However, if this is not enough, then allow me to quote an irrefutable excerpt that Imam Ahmad superbly made an acid test for those who have doubt about this matter of Allah being limited in His being. Check this out

the title of this chapter from his radd is

"Bab: If you wish to know that the Jahmi lies against Allah, in saying that Allah is in every place and is not in one place to the exclusion of any other"

So that is the title

So he begins by saying

"Say: Was there not Allah when there was nothing else? "

In this line, he is telling the people of the sunnah to ask these people of rhetorical philosophical retardedness the above question


"He will assent"
Meaning he (the one being asked) will agree

"Then say: When He made a thing, did He do so inside or outside of Him?

"Three possibilities follow

meaning, there can only be three different views, no more and no less, and two of them is apostasy and only one is correct. He says

"If he asserts that Allah created all things within Himself, including jinn, men and devils, he denies the faith."

thus one who holds this belief cannot be a Muslim. next he says

"If he says that He created them outside of Himself and then entered into them, including all the wild, squalid and vile places –this too is infidelity".

again, a beleif such as this invalidates the faith

"And if he says He created them outside of Himself and then did not enter into them, he has abandoned his position for that of the ahl-Sunna.

i.e. if the one who agrees with us that Allah has created the creation outside of Himself and remains outside and thus seperate and distinct from His creation, then such an individual has abandoned the view that Allah is unlimited in His Being nd has agreed with us (ahlu-sunnah) that He is limited in His being because believing that He is unlimited in His being equals the belief that He coexist with His creation. SO if it is agreed by any individual that Allah created the creation outside of Himself and remained so has just conceded to our view that Allah is limited in His being

So then it was asked

You have affirmed “place” inside creation and “place” outside creation, and this affirmation entails that the “place” inside creation should be created and the “place” outside creation should be uncreated,

Therefore, you have asserted an uncreated “place” for Allah (quote: “These two covers up everything that exists”) – I wonder what the Righteous Salaf would have made of such an assertion.

Do you have any evidence from the Righteous Salaf that they ever asserted an uncreated “place” for Allah?

to which my reply was
the salaf would not have mentioned nothing. WHY? because when the prophet inquired to the slave women "aiynallah" i.e. where is Allah, the term aiyn already implies the meaning of place and since it is the prophet Muhammad who asked this question, then this makes Muhammad a mushabih anthropomorphist in the view of those who claim to believe in the creed that he taught his companions.

secondly, regarding this point, the salaf did not view the idea of "place" in the manner that you have viewed it under the implication of your words. place if viewed under the kalaami premise is an area that is confined to direction and surrounded by the six directions. We say this applies to the creation. But if Allah is above the Throne as He said He was, and then at the same time someone accused this claim made by Allah as ascribing place to Him in a manner that is meant by the philosophers as expounded by the ash'aris, then we reject the notion that Allah is surrounded by the six direction and confined to a place. That is because when place is attributed to other than Allah, then it requires the properties mentioned by the philosophers, which is confinement and in spatial direction. But when we are speaking of Allah, then the propietorial attributes and laws applicable to creation is inapplicable to Allah. So when we say Allah is in the direction of highness and in the place which is above the throne, then all the properties that have been applicated upon the definitions of space or place are inapplicable if the one who "place" is being attributed to is Allah.
Failing to make this distinction between Allah and His creation is the true nature of tashbeeh. In other words, if we say that above has the meaning of being in a direction and therefore limited, and therefore claiming that if we affirm Allah;s highness then we are affirming a direction for Allah, then you are really likening Allah into how you view the creation, and this is exactly the tashbeeh of the Ash'aris.

And this is exactly where the acclaimed "rationalist" mindset of the ash'aris has been abandoned because these formulas they have made for Allah is illogical and does not make sense and is incoherent and ultimately it does not match the beliefs of the salaf.

The Ash'ari View of Where is Allah (Himself)


I will quote Ibnul-Jawzee as it seems to be the best argument for the ash'aris (such an irony, that it took a hanbali to present their heresy in a manageable fashion as their very own adherents can't even present a good argument for themselves)

Haafidh Ibnul-Jawzee states the following

Furthermore, from another point of view, it can be pointed out that He is neither in this world nor outside it because entering and exiting are inseparable attributes of things which occupy space. Entering and exiting are just like movement and stillness and all other accidents which apply to bodies only.

Notice that Ibn al-Zaghūnī claims above [Ibn al-Jawzī had quoted from one of his books] that He did not create things in His Essence (dhāt); therefore, he presumes it is established that they are separate from Him. [In refutation of this claim] we declare [that is, Ibn al-Jawzī] that the Essence of the Transcendent God (dhātuhū al-muqaddasah) is
beyond having things created in it, or that things should occur in it. Now, material separation in relation to Him requires of Him what it requires of substances [namely, that He be defined by finite limits]. Indeed, the definition of location is that what occupies it prevents a similar thing from being found there; [whereas, nothing is similar to God in any way].

It is apparent that what [these anthropomorphists] presume is based on sensory analogy.
Their inability to conceive of a reality beyond material experience led them into bewilderment, and to liken the attributes of the Transcendent God to the attributes of originated things [that is, to commit tashbīh].

At any rate, I did offer my critique on this logic elsewhere

However, these criticisms were directed at the defunct logic used above.

Now, I will disect this argument from the implicated ramifications of this kalaam stated by Ibnul-Jawzee above.

1. Inside or outside the World.
In logic, reason, and plain simple reality there can only be three states regarding this subject
A. within creation
B. beyond (outside of) creation
C. merely conceptual (concepts that are not real, but merely concepts and therefore non existential)

The Jahmi Belief is that Allah was in creation which has been dealt with above and the imtihaan of Imaam Ahmad is a burhan in this subject.

The Normal Sunni Belief is that Allah is beyond (outside) and ABOVE the creation

The Ash'ari belief is that Allah does not exist as He is not within this world, NOR OUTSIDE OF IT.

We say, that such a belief accords to the beliefs of the atheists, because while you do not aspire to reach the same goal as the atheists, you have treaded upon the path of atheism using different tools than the atheists.

If Allah is not within His creation, and likewise Allah is not outside of it, then that only leads to one more possibility, which is that He (Allah) is merely a concetpual figment of our imagination and not an entity that actually exist, and hence this belief requires what is most obvious, Allah's NON-existentiality

This topic as well touches the topic of "bi dhaatih" and "jism" because as Ibnul-Jawzee suggest, Allah is transcendant of having form and "LIMIT" thereby contradicting the aqidah of Imaam Ahmad because Imaam Ahmad argued against the Jahmiyyah on this very point. Allah IN HIS BEING has a limit, but not of His Attributes. His Mercy is infinate, His Power is infinate, but His being is not and therefore limited. WHY? Because the logical outcome of such a belief entails that if He is not limited in His being, then that means He is physically encompassing everything (both what is in the creation and whatever is outside of it) which is why the Jahmiyyah came to the kufr conclusion that Allah is fi kulli makaan.

However, for the heretical pseudo ash'aris, for a group who could be concluded in the realm of theists, they came out with an A-theist conclusion inspite of their theism. Allah theist (this includes everyone who is not an atheist) asserts in one form or another that Alah is either within this world, or somewhere beyond it. These are the two conclusionary outlooks of every single theist that exist on planet Earth. However, there is one school of thought that posited a different outlook, which is that Allah does not exist at all. This is the outlook of the atheist.

As for the ash'aris, they are the only group in existence who mended the two views together. They affirmed that He exists, and denied His existentiality by asserting that He is neither within this world nor outside of it.

at any rate, Ibnul-Jawzee here states that if Allah is indeed seperate, then that entails that He has form and limit which he negates for Allah.

We, the Ahlu-Sunnah say, that He has a form that befits His Majesty and Nature because after careful study, then the statement He does not have form entails some major implications like
1. If He has no form and is unlimited, then that entails either the belief that ALlah is everywhere OR His NON-existentialism i.e. Atheism
2. If He has no form

The Issue of Bi Dhaatih and Imaam adh-Dhahabee's Commentary on the Apparent Atheism of This Ash'ari Equation for Allah


as I said before ,this issue actually touches the topics of jism and "bi dhaatih" and now Im adding Istiwaa because the logical conclusion to the issue of Istiwaa of Allah is "Where is Allah" which is the essence of this very thread and here is one such example where adh-Dhahabee comments on their strange and awkward form of atheism

I will highlight the relevant portion in bold. I have quoted this passage several times before and each time I quoted it, it was of benefit to each topic. SO this following passage has many benefits that touches spans over several subjects, but the issue I wish to highlight in this thread is concerning the topic of Allah's actual whereness

here is where haafidh adh-Dhahabee brought forth the inquistition of the salaf in this regard. He quotes Qurtubee who said in ‘al-Asnaa’,

"Many of the past and contemporary philosophers said, ‘When it is necessary to purify the Creator (al-Baaree) - whose Magnificence is great - from having direction (jihah) and demarcation (tamayyuz), then from the requirements and necessary consequences of this, in the view of most of the past scholars and their leading contemporaries, is to purify the Creator (al-Baaree) from having direction (jihah). In their view, direction does not have the aspect of ‘above’ to it. This is because to them, when Allaah is designated with direction, this would necessitate that He is restricted to a place (makaan) and a confine (hayyiz). (Subsequently), a place and a confine necessitate (for Him) (such) movement and stillness that is related to distinction (tamayyuz), transformation (taghayyur) and new occurrences (hudooth) . This is the saying of the philosophers.

I (adh-Dhahabee) say, "Yes, this is what the deniers of the ‘uluww (highness) of the Lord, Mighty and Majestic, have depended upon. And they turned away from the requirement of the Book, the Sunnah, the sayings of the Salaf and the innate dispositions of the whole of creation. What they claim to be necessitated (from affirming Allaah’s highness) is only applicable to created bodies. Yet there is nothing like Allaah and the necessities arising from the clear and evident texts (of the Book and the Sunnah) are also true. However, we do not make use of any explanation except one that comes through a narration. In addition to this we say, ‘We do not accept that the Creator’s being upon His Throne and above the heavens, necessitates that He is confined and in spatial direction, since whatever is below the Throne is said to be confined and in spatial direction. However, what is above the Throne is not like that. And Allaah is above the Throne as the very first generation are unanimously agreed upon and as the imaams after them have quoted from them. They said this in refutation of the Jahmiyyah, those who said that He is in every place seeking as a proof His saying, ‘And He is with you…’. So these two sayings were the very two sayings which were present in the time of the Taabi’een and their successors who came after them. And they are the two sayings that can be understood in this statement (i.e. of the philosophers). As for the third saying which came around after this which is that’ Allaah the Most High is not in any place, nor is His Holy Essence (Dhaat) confined, nor is He separate and distinct from His creation, nor is he in any spatial direction, nor is outside of any spatial directions, and nor this and nor that…’ then this is something that cannot be comprehended nor understood , along with the fact that within it is opposition to the verses (of the Book) and the narrations (from the Salaf). Therefore flee with your religion and beware of the opinions of the philosophers. Believe in Allaah and what has come from Him upon the desired intent of Allaah, then submit your affair to Him and there is no power nor movement except by Allaah."
The book is completed and all praise is to Allaah alone…" Mukhtasir al-Uloow

Indeed in this passage I highlighted in underlined above, means that this can only come about through the idea of "concepts" which is the basis for non existentialism. In other words, the mind that comes across this statement and in which the subject is concerning Allah, then it can only be non existentialism that is understood and nothing more.

• The Defense of Ash'aris lack of Atheistic methodology

This following defence was actually brought by one of our brothers here and Im merely quoting them to demolish the points reasied and not the brother for merely stating them

they are

I can think of three other choices that do not necissitate non-existence:

1) There is the side itself,

2) There is being both inside and outside,

3) There is being neither inside nor outside through transcending.

as for
1. that does not make sense and it entails an asl that opposes one of the fundamentals of ash'arism.
A. being on the side canot take place if there is no such thing as being within our outside of that thing. In other words, in order to be on the side of something, it either has to be within that thing, or outside of it
B. However, even for the sake of aegument that existence can be proven by not being within the creation or outside of it, and still proving being on the side, then it entails that ALlah has a physical connection since being on the side of something physically entails contact of some form

as for
2. Being both inside and outside. Well that equals Allah fi kulli makan (Allah is everwhere) because this is exactly what the jahmiyyah argued for

as for
3. transcending, then the question is transcending to what. Allah only revealed a universal fact which is, Himself and Other Than Himself. There is no third state in the physical realm. There is one other state, but it is a metaphysical (i.e. non-existential) realm where things within this state (like the number 5) are merely concepts within the figment of our imaginations and nothing more.

Shaykhul-Islam Ibnul-Taymiyyah says Bayaan Talbis al-Jahmiyyah (1/443)

"And when the Jahmiyyah speaks with such words whose meanings comprise the sense that the Creator is not distinguished (seperate) from the creation, then they deny and oppose His Attributes by which He is distinguished, and they deny His Power (qadar) such that when the M'utazilah come to know that He is al-Hayy (The Living), al-'Aleem (All-Knowing), al-Qadeer (All-Powerful), they say, 'We already know His reality and His (true) nature,' and they say, 'He is not seperate and distinguished (Ba'in) from those besides Him.'
Infact, either they should describe Him with the Attribute of non-existence (Atheism) so that they say, 'He is neither inside the world, not outside it and nor this and nor that,' or they should make Him merged with the created things or the existence of the created things."
[end quote]

my comments

There is a mountain of realities that we can pull from this single excerpt from Ibn Taymiyyah alone, but for the sake of brevity, I will only comment on that which relates to our situation in this specific thread regarding their apparent Atheism

The Jahmiyya were at odds with the Mutazilah in spite of the same pedastal from which they operated and understood the religion i.e. kalaamist philosophy.

The jahmis, on the one hand, through their denial of everything about Allah, came to the conclusion that Allah is simply unlimited, and by default of that aqidah, came to the most logical conclusion of this premise, which is that He is everywhere.

However, on the other hand, the mutazilah, like the ash'aris today, had a more contradictory aqida, because at least the jahmis were blatently clear. The mutazilah affirmed the same thing as the jahmiyyah did (well some of them) while at the same time forming a creedal principle that "He is neither inside the world, nor outside, nor to the left, nor to the right, or the front, or the back, nor below the creation, nor above it"

2. There are only three outcomes to this particular issue, two of them are kufr that negates Islam, and the other is the sunni wahhabi stance.

Ibn Taymiyyah is implying in this statement that there can only be three outcomes to this issue
either one is going to say that
1. Allah is everywhere due to the fact of believing that Allah is infinate in His Being
or
2. Allah is no where i.e. non exsitentiality i.e. atheism as the ash'aris and their fathers profess
or
3. He is ABOVE the Creation, Seperate and Distinct from it (Ba'in wa haddin minhu)

This is why Ahmad stated what was stated above which I reiterate here so that it can be made crystal clear

Bab: If you wish to know that the Jahmi lies against Allah, in saying that Allah is in every place and is not in one place to the exclusion of any other"

[He tells his readers to ask the jahmis with the following]
"Say: Was there not Allah when there was nothing else? "

"He will assent"
[Meaning he (the one being asked) will agree]

"Then say: When He made a thing, did He do so inside or outside of Him?

"Three possibilities follow

[meaning, there can only be three different views, no more and no less, and two of them is apostasy and only one is correct.]

Ahmad says

1. "If he asserts that Allah created all things within Himself, including jinn, men and devils, he denies the faith."

2. "If he says that He created them outside of Himself and then entered into them, including all the wild, squalid and vile places –this too is infidelity".

3. "And if he says He created them outside of Himself and then did not enter into them, he has abandoned his position for that of the ahl-Sunna.

i.e. if the one who agrees with us that Allah has created the creation outside of Himself and remains outside and thus seperate and distinct from His creation, then such an individual has abandoned the view that Allah is unlimited in His Being and has agreed with us (ahlu-sunnah) that He is limited in His being because believing that He is unlimited in His being equals the belief that He co-exist with His creation. SO if it is agreed by any individual that Allah created the creation outside of Himself and remained so has just conceded to our "wahhabi" "anthropomorphist" view that Allah is limited in His being for which Shaykhul-Islam Ibnul-Taymiyyah was personally attacked for by the ash'aris accusing him that he had no salaf for this claim of al-Hadd, when in fact he did have a salaf who affirmed this, Ibnul-Mubarak and Ahmad bin Hanbal.

however, the ash'aris came up with the Allah is no where aqida by stating neither above, nor below, nor inside nor outside creation. So this is the forth view which I made a mistake in not incorperating into the argument


This is what i have thus far and inshallah it can be built upon later

[Abdul-Fattah]

Selam aleykum
I have already replied to you regarding the nature of time and space. On top of that I would like to add the following contribution in this thread:
First to make things clear I am not a follower of this person who's arguments you refute, and do not necessaryly agree with all of his viewpoints. However some of your (counter-)arguments are flawed for the following reason:

There's a difference between being inside of something and being part of something. For example, if I am inside of my house, I am not a part of my house. The kitchen on the other hand, which is also inside of my house however, is a part of my house. So if something is inside something else, then it can be a part of it, or it can be that it isn't a part of it. Both possibilities are possible, and neither one is inherited to being inside.

So the issue on whether or not Allah subhana wa ta'ala is part of this universe, and the issue on wheter or no Allah subhana wa ta'ala resides in this universe are two completely different issues. I think that this was not very clear from your article, and may be the source of some confusion.

[salman]

As-Salamu 'Alaykum

this is what I said on IA, a reply to a deo mulla; it is a summarized argument refuting their attack on our aqeedah about "place":

As far concerning the issue of place, your ancestors and you, both have misunderstood what we mean. You're the ones who attack us with straw man and put words in our mouths and yell out loud "place, place place" or "jiha, jiha jiha".

1 - We affirm that Allah Ta'ala is above the heavens over His throne, separate and outside of His creation in His Essence and He rose over His throne. There is no such thing as place or space outside of His creation. Therefore, we don't say that Allah Ta'ala has a place or bounded by some place/space but He is outside of His creation. These are innovated terms by you people!

2 - The jiha is in respect to Allah Ta'ala's Dhat and His creation. So, jiha for Allah Ta'ala is from creation's perspective about their Lord.

3 - We use the term "place" to refute your heretical 'aqeedah and to explain you that from creation's perspective Allah Ta'ala can only be in two places in His Essence: 1) inside of His creation or 2) outside of His creation. The term "place" here doesn't imply that Allah Ta'ala is bounded by some sort of place like His creation or the meaning that your scream out from your lungs. It simply implies that either Allah is inside of His creation or outside of His creation. We affirm and believe in whatever has been passed down to us from the Qur'an, the Saheeh Sunnah and the athar of the Salaf

4 - You say that you don't have problem if we say Allah is above His throne, separate and outside of His creation. Yet, you deny that Allah rose over His throne and He is above the heavens over His throne in His Dhat. Yet, you don't deny that your ancestors were wrong as they believed that Allah Ta'ala's is neither inside of His creation and nor outside of His creation. On top, you make takfeer of the sunni ulama who refuted them!

Let's not forget the golden words of great Imam, the Shafi'i muhadith and one of the eminent students of Shyakh ul-Islam (ibn Taymiyyah - rahimahullah), adh-Dahabi (rahimahullah):

As for the third saying which came about finally, then it said that "Allah is not in a place, neither outside of it, nor above His Throne, neither connected to the creation nor disconnected from it, His Holy Essence is neither spatially confined nor distinct from His creation, neither is He in any directions nor outside of directions, neither this nor that, neither this nor that..."

This is something which neither makes sense nor can be understood! Not to mention the opposition to the ayaat and narrations that is found within this saying. So flee with your deen and beware of the views of the Mutakallimeen (speculative-theological rhetoricians) [al-'Uluww, p.268]

So adh-Dahabi (rahimahullah) was another "wahabi mujasmi heretic"!

[Abdul-Fattah]

Selam aleykum,
Ok brother, thanks for clearing that up.
I can completely agree to that vision, but judging from brother al-boriqee's post in this other thread, he sees things differently than you do. He doesn't only claim that this is a semantic issue related to a different semantic view of the word "place", but also goes on to claim that "space" itself is an abstract concept.

[salman]

lol, here you both go again...akhee Abdul please move the last two posts to other thread on this space topic. btw, what I stated in my post earlier doesn't go against what bro boriqee has said in other topic, like he mentioned.

[Abdul-Fattah]

Originally Posted by salman

lol, here you both go again...akhee Abdul please move the last two posts to other thread on this space topic. btw, what I stated in my post earlier doesn't go against what bro boriqee has said in other topic, like he mentioned.

So, you also deny Einstein's relativity theory and the standardized theory of particle phyisics? (ps, other two posts have been moved as requested)