his action transitioned. [And some of them said: His statement: "Then He istawā to the heaven" means by it: it became straight (istawat)] (1). As the poet said:

I say to him when he settled (istawā) in his dust ... upon what religion did Muṣʿab kill the people? (2)

And some of them said: "Then He istawā to the heaven," He aimed for it (3). And he said: Rather, everyone who leaves an action he was engaged in for another, he is "mustawin" (directing himself) to what he aimed for, and "mustawin" to it.

And some of them said: Istiwāʾ is elevation, and elevation is rising. And among those who said that was al-Rabīʿ b. Anas.

588- I was told that from ʿAmmār b. al-Ḥasan, who said: ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Jaʿfar narrated to us, from his father, from al-Rabīʿ b. Anas: "Then He directed Himself (istawā) to the heaven." He says: He rose to the heaven (4).

Then those who interpreted istiwāʾ to mean elevation and rising differed regarding what directed itself (istawā) to the heaven. Some of them said: The One who directed Himself to the heaven and elevated over it is its Creator and Originator. And some of them said: Rather, the one elevating over it is the smoke that God made as a heaven for the earth (5).

Abū Jaʿfar said: Istiwāʾ in the speech of the Arabs is applied in several ways: Among them is the completion of a man's youth and strength, so it is said, when he reaches that state: The man has reached full maturity (istawā). And among them is the straightening of affairs and causes that had crookedness, from which it is said: So-and-so's affair straightened out (istawā) for him, when it becomes straight after crookedness, and from it is the saying of al-Ṭirimmāḥ b. Ḥakīm:

Its eternity has prolonged over the trace of Mahdad ... and it was effaced and its land leveled (istawā) with it (6)