the consensus among Muslims and disbelievers is that Allah is in the heavens, and they defined a limit for Him in that regard, except for the misguided al-Marisi and his companions.
He said: "O Commander of the Faithful, this man"—meaning Ahmad ibn Hanbal—"claims that Allah will be seen in the Hereafter, yet the eye can only fall upon that which is limited (mahdud), and Allah the Almighty cannot be limited (la yuhad)." [Tarikh Baghdad (11/466-467)].
He was among those who denied the Divine Transcendence (‘uluw) and the Lord’s Ascension (istiwāʾ) over the Throne.
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Nadr al-Azdi said: I heard Ibn al-A‘rabi saying: "Ahmad ibn Abi Du’ad wanted me to find in some of the dialects of the Arabs and their meanings [a basis for interpreting] 'The Most Merciful rose over the Throne' (istawā) to mean 'conquered' (istawlā). I replied: 'By Allah, this cannot be, and I have never found it.'" [Al-Ibanah al-Kubra (2683), edited by myself].
As previously mentioned in the report of Yahya ibn ‘Ammar (may Allah have mercy on him), it was due to his denial of the limit (al-hadd) that he was removed and expelled from Sijistan. I have examined his book al-Sahih and did not come across any statement of his regarding the Divine Transcendence (‘uluw) or the Ascension (istiwāʾ), although he did speak about some of the attributes of Allah the Almighty, following the path of the Jahmiyyah in terms of figurative interpretation (taʾwīl) and distortion (tahrīf).
