All praise is due to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. To proceed:
Allah’s Highness is one of His essential attributes, firmly established for Him. He is the Most High, the Most Exalted, and He has always been and will always remain characterized by Highness. This Highness does not depend on the existence of created beings, because Allah deserves Highness in and of Himself, and He is the Manifest, above whom there is nothing. When He created creation, the relation of this Highness to created beings became manifest, and He was above all His creation.
It is important to distinguish between Allah’s essential Highness, which is an attribute inseparable from Him, and His rising over the Throne, which is an action connected to His will and occurred after the creation of the Throne, the heavens, and the earth.
Allah says:
“And He is the Most High, the Most Great.”
[Al-Baqarah 2:255]
And He says:
“Glorify the Name of your Lord, the Most High.”
[Al-A‘la 87:1]
Highness is therefore one of Allah’s essential attributes, meaning that it is inseparable from His essence and that He has always been and will always remain characterized by it.
An essential attribute differs from an attribute of action. Essential attributes such as knowledge, power, hearing, sight, and Highness are never absent from Allah. Attributes of action, however, are connected to His will; He does them whenever He wills, such as rising over the Throne, descending, and coming.
Thus, it is not said that Allah knows only when He wills, or that He becomes Great only when He wills, because these are necessary attributes of perfection.
Allah is characterized by the kinds of Highness that befit Him: Highness of essence, Highness of rank and status, and Highness of dominion and supremacy.
One of the clearest explanations of His Highness is the saying of the Prophet ﷺ:
“O Allah, You are the First, and there is nothing before You; You are the Last, and there is nothing after You; You are the Manifest, and there is nothing above You; and You are the Hidden, and there is nothing beyond You.”
[Narrated by Muslim]
His words ﷺ:
“You are the Manifest, and there is nothing above You”
show that Allah is the Highest and that nothing is above Him.
This is an attribute permanently established for Him, just as His being “the First” is permanently established for Him, whether created beings exist or not.
Just as He was the First before anything was created, He is the Manifest, the Highest, above whom there is nothing.
No.
Allah is independent of all His creation, and His Highness does not depend on the Throne, the heaven, or any other created thing.
A created being that is elevated above something may depend upon it. For example, a person sitting on a chair needs what supports him, and if it were removed, he would fall.
Allah, however, cannot be compared to created beings. He is independent of the Throne and of all the worlds.
He is the One who created the Throne and sustains it by His power; the Throne does not support Him.
Therefore, saying that Allah is High does not mean that He needs something beneath Him for the attribute of Highness to be realized.
If it is asked: How was Allah High before He created anything beneath Him?
The answer is that Allah’s deserving Highness is intrinsic to Him. He is “the Most High” and “the Manifest,” above whom there is nothing.
As for relating His Highness to a particular created thing—such as saying that Allah is above the heavens, above the Throne, and above all creation—this relation becomes manifest after those created things exist.
Thus, we may distinguish between two matters:
The fundamental attribute of Highness: It has eternally belonged to Allah and does not depend on the existence of creation.
The manifestation of the relation of Highness between Allah and created beings: This occurs when created beings come into existence, and Allah is above them.
For this reason, scholars have stated that Allah has always been High in His essence, while the manifestation of the relation of this Highness to something other than Him depends on the existence of that other thing.
Allah named Himself the Manifest (Al-Zahir), and the Prophet ﷺ explained this by saying:
“You are the Manifest, and there is nothing above You.”
This wording is significant because the Prophet ﷺ did not merely say that Allah is “above everything”; rather, he said:
“There is nothing above You.”
The meaning is that Highness is established for Allah in Himself and that the fundamental reality of this description does not depend upon the existence of a created being over which Allah is higher.
Then, when Allah creates created beings, all of them are beneath Him, and none of them is above Him.
It is important to distinguish between Highness and rising over the Throne.
Highness is an essential attribute; Allah has always been High.
Rising over the Throne, however, is an attribute of action connected to His will, and Allah has informed us that it occurred after the creation of the heavens and the earth.
Allah says:
“Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then rose over the Throne.”
[Al-A‘raf 7:54]
Rising over the Throne is a particular Highness over the Throne, whereas Allah’s Highness is broader and more fundamental than that.
Thus, it may be said that whoever rises over something is above it, but not every kind of Highness is rising over something.
Allah was High before rising over the Throne. Then He rose over the Throne as He has informed us, in a manner befitting His Majesty.
The fatwa mentioned that some scholars hold that Allah has always been creating and that it is possible that He created beings before this world that we observe.
However, even according to the view that created beings had a beginning and that “Allah was and there was nothing besides Him,” the issue does not remain problematic, because Allah’s Highness is intrinsic to Him and is not conditional upon the existence of created beings.
He was the Most High and the Manifest before creation, and when He created creation, He was above all of it.
The difficulty usually arises from imagining Allah’s Highness in the same way that we imagine the elevation of created beings.
But Allah says:
“There is nothing like unto Him.”
[Ash-Shura 42:11]
Therefore, we must not compare Allah’s Highness to one body being above another body, or to a created being depending on a place or something supporting it.
Rather, we affirm for Allah what He has affirmed for Himself in a manner befitting Him, while believing that He is independent of all His creation and that nothing resembles Him in any of His attributes.
Allah’s Highness is an essential attribute inseparable from Him. He is the Most High, the Most Exalted, and the Manifest above whom there is nothing, and He has always been and will always remain so.
The affirmation of this attribute does not require the existence of a created being beneath Allah, because His deserving Highness is intrinsic to Him.
When Allah created created beings, the relation of this Highness to them became manifest, and He was above all His creation.
As for rising over the Throne, it is a particular kind of Highness and an attribute of action connected to His will. It occurred after the creation of the heavens and the earth, unlike the fundamental attribute of Highness, with which Allah has always been characterized.
And Allah knows best.