40- Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad bin ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq bin [20/A] Khalaf al-Dimashqī informed us, Abū
This is if it is correct to consider it among them! And God knows best.
al-Dārimī, may Allah have mercy on him, said in al-Naqḍ (pp. 383-385): "The opponent also narrated from al-Shaʿbī that God has filled the Throne, such that it has a creaking like the creaking of a camel saddle.
Then he interpreted al-Shaʿbī's statement [to mean] that He has filled it with bounties and blessings such that it has a creaking, not based on the bearing of a body, for God charged the heavens, the earth, and the mountains with the trust, but they refused to bear it, and the trust is not a body; so likewise, what is described upon the Throne is interpreted.
So it is said to this opponent: You have stammered and obfuscated until you explicitly stated that God is not upon the Throne; rather, only His bounties and blessings are upon it. Thus, no further extent of denying the Throne remains after this interpretation.
Woe to you! If there is nothing upon the Throne, according to your claim, except His bounties, blessings, and command, then why does the Throne creak from the bounties and blessings? It is as if, to you, they are bundles of stones, rocks, and iron, such that the Throne creaks from them out of heaviness. Bounties are merely natures or deeds that have no weight, nor are they bodies from which the Throne would creak. Furthermore, in this interpretation of yours, you have denied that there is anything of God upon the Throne, or even of those bounties and blessings, since you compared them to the trust that God charged the heavens, the earth, and the mountains with, but they refused to bear it. Thus, you have acknowledged that there is nothing upon the Throne; because when the heavens, the earth, and the mountains refused to bear the trust, God did not burden them with anything, but rather left them devoid of that trust, and man bore it; indeed, he was unjust and ignorant.
So in your claim, there is nothing upon the Throne of those bounties and blessings that you claimed, just as there is nothing of that trust upon the heavens, the earth, and the mountains. So just as the heavens, the earth, and the mountains are devoid of the trust, likewise the Throne, according to you, is devoid of anything upon it.
So see, O ignorant one, into what destructive perils these interpretations lead you, and to what ignorance and misguidance they drag you! Thus, it testifies against you with the ugliest of absurdities. You did not make any interpretation regarding the Throne at the beginning of your book that is more atrocious or further from the truth than this." End quote.