[Aaron Zakariya]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 26 2009, 11:30 PM, said:

Zhulfiqar, on Sep 26 2009, 04:55 PM, said:

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 26 2009, 06:41 PM, said:

How can God exist without a place?

How can the creation exist without begin ?

You can't answer me with a Question.

How can the creation exist without a beginning?: it means, how can space, which is a creation, have no beginning? Time and place were created and have a beginning, therefore, The Creator of time and place must be beyond time and beyond place.

[Hamoudeh]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 26 2009, 06:41 PM, said:

How can God exist without a place? This stuff is mad.

Rather, it is the question that is mad. It is similar to asking, how can God exist without a body? The question should rather be, how can you confine God to a place and still claim that it is God? For by definition, God cannot be confined to such a thing. This is because place is a creation, it is space. God is unlike creation, and cannot be confined by it. This is why God is not in a place, nor in a time, nor in a direction and so on. Allah subhanahu wa-ta`ala transcends all that. The contrary belief is called anthropomorphism and found in many other religions including Christianity and Judaism.

Wassalam

[Murat Yazici]

A few weeks ago somebody in a Turkish forum called me "Jahmi" for saying that Allah exists without place. He said, if Allah is not at a place then this means that "Allah is nowhere" and "Allah does not exist."

All this reminds me what Ibn Taymiyya has been reported to claim about Arsh, i.e Arsh being eternal by type/category, so that Allahu ta'ala always had a place to sit on (according to him)!

Allahu ta'ala is exalted beyond such blasphemy.

Place and all places (makan) and all directions were created by Allah.

Saying that Allah cannot exist without place necessarily implies eternal existence of creation (a place, Arsh). But, believing that one of creation is eternal is shirk. Imam Subki explains this in as-Sayf-us-Saqil.

This post has been edited by Murat Yazici: 26 September 2009 - 07:13 PM

[Zhulfiqar]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 26 2009, 08:00 PM, said:

Zhulfiqar, on Sep 26 2009, 04:55 PM, said:

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 26 2009, 06:41 PM, said:

How can God exist without a place?

How can the creation exist without begin ?

You can't answer me with a Question.

Brother Hamoudeh provided a nice answer along with other brothers. However do you even know what your question implies ? What is place ? Please define to all of us what place is according to you and after that repeat your question and maybe then you will see the absurdity of your question in sha Allah al-Rahmaan.

This post has been edited by Zhulfiqar: 26 September 2009 - 07:27 PM

[Murat Yazici]

I have a similar compilation of quotes from great Islamic scholars:

http://muratyazici.b...lemek-caiz.html

Actually, although there is some overlap with the quotes brothers posted under this thread, there are also quite a number of additional/different quotes.

All of these are in Turkish and most have been taken from Turkish translations of works written originally in Arabic or Persian. So, if I translate these, they will be translations of translations. Therefore, I will not attempt that. If, in the future, I can somehow gather the original Arabic and Persian versions of all these quotes, then translation to English can be attempted.

I have however three quotes from books written in Turkish by their original authors. Let me list them here:

Şeyhülislâm Ebussu'ud Efendi'nin (rahime-hullahü teâlâ) fetvalarında şöyle yazılıdır:

876. Mes'ele: Hak celle ve 'ala hazretleri, mekândan münezzeh olucak, göklerde deyu i'tikâd etmek mi gerektir, ve nice i'tikâd etmek gerektir? Elcevap: "Cemîl emkineden [mekânlardan] münezzeh olup, gökler yerler hükmünde ve ilminde ve kudretinde" deyu i'tikâd etmek lâzımdır. Du'âda eli yukarı kaldırmak, cihet-i fevk [üst yön] du'âya kıble kılındığı içindir.

Shayhulislam Ebussu'ud Effendi (the 13th Shayhulislam, d. 982/1574):

876. Matter: How should one believe? Allahu ta'ala exalted beyond makan, in the skies, or what else? Answer: It is necessary to believe that Allahu ta'ala is exalted beyond [being in a] makan [place], and that the skies and the grounds are under His dominion and ilm [knowledge] and power. Directing the hands towards the sky during prayer is due to the fact that the upper direction has been made the qibla of prayer.

Meşhur Mızraklı İlmihal'de diyor ki:

"Bir kimse Allahdan hâli [boş] yer yok dese veyâ Allahü teâlâ gökdedir dese, kâfir olur demişler." (Miftahu'l-Cenne-Mızraklı İlmihal, Bedir Yay., s.116)

From the famous basic aqida and fiqh book "Mızraklı İlmihal" widely distributed and read during the Osmanlı (Ottoman) times:

"If somebody says that there is no place empty of Allah or Allah is in the sky, he becomes kafir [apostate]." (Miftahu'l-Janna, Bedir Publishing, Istanbul, p. 116)

İmam-ı Birgivî rahimehullah diyor ki:

"Bir kimse (Allahü Teâlâ gökte benim şahidimdir) dese kâfir olur. Zira [Allahü teâlâya mekân isnad etmiş olur] Allahü Teâlâ mekândan berîdir." (Birgivi Vasiyetnamesi, Bedir Yay., s.52)

Imam Birgivi (d. 981/1573) states:

"If a person says (Allahu ta'ala is my witness in the sky) he/she becomes kafir. Because, Allahu ta'ala is exalted beyond [being in a] makan [place]." (Vasiyyatname of Birgivi, Bedir Publishing, Istanbul, p. 52)

The importance of these last two books is, they have both been very widely used by the people, and distributed and approved by ulama [scholars] in the Ottoman lands over several centuries.

This post has been edited by Murat Yazici: 27 September 2009 - 10:26 AM

[Ruwayda Mustafah]

[MOD EDIT: List of links to bunch of threads on ahlalhdeeth.com removed]

What are your responses to the above please? I want detailed responses.

Thanks.

[Aaron Zakariya]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 28 2009, 12:13 AM, said:

What are your responses to the above please? I want detailed responses.

Thanks.

All I can is that it will take a long time to respond to each item on the list; it would be better if you take it one point at a time for better understanding.

[Zhulfiqar]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 27 2009, 08:43 PM, said:

[MOD EDIT: List of links to bunch of threads on ahlalhdeeth.com removed]

What are your responses to the above please? I want detailed responses.

Thanks.

Brother, why don't you first define to us what place is and repeat your question again ?

[Ruwayda Mustafah]

The links were in response to this thread, If you can't address them then that's fine. SubhanAllah!!!

Zhul: I'm a sister.

This post has been edited by Ruwayda Mustafah: 28 September 2009 - 09:16 AM

[Zhulfiqar]

Ruwayda Mustafah, on Sep 28 2009, 11:16 AM, said:

The links were in response to this thread, If you can't address them then that's fine. SubhanAllah!!!

Zhul: I'm a sister.

Sorry my bad. However forget these links, you've came here and asked;

Quote

How can God exist without a place?

All I'm asking is what the definition is of place according to you ? YOU are the one who asked this, so I want the definition YOU used for place in order to give an answer.

جزاكم الله خيرا

This post has been edited by Zhulfiqar: 28 September 2009 - 02:28 PM

[Ruwayda Mustafah]

I thought about it. My Question is irrelevant. I don’t need to define the term “where” in order to say Allah is e.g. above the seven heavens.

That aside, I have no knowledge of this topic in order to discuss it. Maybe in the future inshAllah.

[Abu Haneefa]

Assalamu^alaykum

I have come across the following;

"Even Imaam Al-Qurtubi, who himself agreed with the Ash'aris in some issues, narrates the path of the pious predecessors in the Tafsir of Surah Al-A'raaf:
"The pious predecessors would not negate direction nor would they utter such. Rather, they and the rest uttered in affirmation of that (i.e. direction) for Allaah Ta’ala, as did utter His Book, and His Messengers informed – to his words: None from the Salaf al-Salih denied that Allaah Ta’ala Rose over His Throne literally (haqiqatan)"

Can someone who perhaps has access to Imam Qurtubi's tafseer please look into this for me Inshallah. As our local Imam has moved onto another Masjid and the new Imam does not have the work to hand.

Took the quote from an Ahlul Hadeeth forum under the title
Introduction in Refuting the Paradigms of Kalaam and Ash'arism

Would be interested to know if this quote is authentic or perhaps an inaccurate presentation of the Imams words?

[faqir]

as-salamu `alaikum

a translation of the section you refer to and others from his tafsir can be found on the marifah main website in the qur'an section.

[Abu Haneefa]

Assalamu^alykum

Thank you brother. Looking at the translation on marifah and then looking at their quote shows a clear misinterpretation of the words of Imam Qurtubi.

"And the early salaf(MayAllah be pleased with them all)did not speak in negation of a direction for
Allah nor did they affirm it[a direction].Rather,what they and the rest did was to affirm it
[ al-istiwā’]in the manner that it was affirmed in Allah’s book and in the manner in which His
Messengers informed of it. Nor did any of the pious predecessors ever deny that He
established Himself over the Throne in reality."


Where Imam Qurtubi states 'nor did they affirm it' they replaced it with 'nor would they utter such' which in the context of their translation means the uttering of negating a place for Allah.

Then when Imam Qurtubi talks about affirming the Istiwa, they have referred to it as affirming a direction. This is totally misleading as the sentence prior to this he clearly states that neither did they negate or affirm. Would be interested in hearing what their explanation for this would be

As for the last part of the Imams words '...over the Throne in [b]reality.', I noticed that the transliteration states Reality but they translated it as 'litterally', am i missing something or would this be a fair analyses?

To anybody out there reading ?

[faqir]

as-alamu `alaikum

actually we deliberated over the translation of that section for quite some time. i even showed our translation to two professional translators who agreed with ours.... and Allah knows best. look at the footnotes we added in there also - they corroborate our translation.