Assalaamu alaikum! Is omnipresent ie Allah is present everywhere correct attribute of God?
All praise be to Allah and may His blessings and peace be on His messenger, Muhammad,
Allah is above His throne, above the heavens. However, He is also with us, as He said. I would say that there is no conflict between His being above the Throne and being with us (ma‘iyyah) wherever we are because we are not limited in our beliefs about the Divine to our human categories of understanding. The (ma‘iyyah) meant to the Athari (scripturalist) scholars that His sight, hearing, knowledge and power are with us and everywhere. This is what they understood from the contextual and inter-textual interpretation of the verses that mention His presence with us wherever we are, and that is to reconcile them with the countless verses, hadeeths, as well as rational proofs on Allah’s transcendence and aboveness.
Imam Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (rA, d. 463 A.H), said,
“… لِأَنَّ عُلَمَاءَ الصَّحَابَةِ وَالتَّابِعِينَ الَّذِينَ حَمَلْتُ عَنْهُمُ التَّأْوِيلَ فِي الْقُرْآنِ قَالُوا فِي تَأْوِيلِ هَذِهِ الْآيَةِ هُوَ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ وَعِلْمُهُ فِي كُلِّ مَكَانٍ وَمَا خَالَفَهُمْ فِي ذَلِكَ أَحَدٌ يُحْتَجُّ بِقَوْلِهِ.”
“…because the scholars among the Companions and Successors, from whom knowledge of (interpretation of scripture) is taken, said concerning the interpretation of this verse, that God is upon His throne and that His knowledge is in all places, and no one whose opinion is considered authoritative has opposed them in this.” [al-Tamheed 7:139]
I would not say that Allah is everywhere, but I would say that He is with us wherever we are, and that is not metaphorical. When it comes to the Divine attributes, we must first establish our beliefs as conveyed in the revelation (the supreme teller of the Truth), within the linguistic conventions and intellectual framework of the first audience, for they were meant to have the purest understanding of these beliefs – and they did. The aboveness of Allah is indicated by hundreds of textual proofs, of which Imam al-Dhahabi cited many in his book ‘al-‘Uloww’ (Transcendence and Aboveness). Here are some:
Allah said,
“الرَّحْمَٰنُ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ اسْتَوَىٰ”
“The Most Merciful [who is] above the Throne established.” [Sahih International, 20:5]
And He said,
“إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ وَالْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْفَعُهُ”
“To Him ascends good speech, and righteous work raises it.” [Sahih International, 35:10]
In speaking about the revelation, the Quran always speaks of sending it down, and so is everything coming from God.
The Prophet (Blessings and Peace be upon Him) said to a young slave girl, “where is Allah?” She said, “in the heaven” then he asked, “who am I?” She said, “The Messenger of Allah,” so he said to her master, “Set her free, for she is a believer.” [Al-Bukhari]
All of this is established in the revelation and is not rejected by any mental axioms of the pure un-corrupted reason, as Imam Ibn Taymiyyah clarified in his magnum opus, ‘Dar’ Ta‘arud al – ‘Aql wal– Naql’ (The Refutation of the Contradiction of Reason and Revelation). It is in fact in conformity with reason. And as for the unfitting so-called concomitants (lawazim) of this belief, we don’t concede any of them. His aboveness does not mean spatial locatedness in the sense of Allah being contained by anything; it also does not necessitate corporealism, as Imam Abu al-Hassan al-Ash‘ari said,
“قَالَ أهل السّنة وَأَصْحَاب الحَدِيث: لَيْسَ بجسم وَلَا يشبه الْأَشْيَاء وَأَنه على الْعَرْش كَمَا قَالَ عز وجل {الرَّحْمَن على الْعَرْش اسْتَوَى} وَلَا نقدم بَين يَدي الله في الْقَوْل بل نقُول اسْتَوَى بِلَا كَيفَ.”
“And Ahl-us-Sunnah and the Hadith scholars said: He is not a body and he is not similar to anything, and He is above the throne, as He (exalted is He) said, “The Most Merciful [who is] above the Throne established.” We do not oppose Allah in His statements, but we say that He established Himself above the throne without (ascribing any) modality.” [Maqâlât al-Islamiyeen, Ritter’s edition 211]
The lack of concomitance between the aboveness of Allah and spatial locatedness and corporealism was admitted by some of the brightest philosophers, like Imam Ibn Rushd (rA) (Averroes). All of these concomitants are but the limitations of the human categories of understanding, like the substance category. Conflating the attributes of God with the qualities of substances caused many philosophers to reject those attributes. To us, we have a humble and flexible amodal affirmation of what we were told by the revelation creating no tension between the reports of the revelation and purports of reason.
We can’t infer something about the unseen (ghayb), particularly God, on the basis of our experience of the seen (shahadah). There is nothing like Him. Some of the most distinguished philosophers, like Kant, also recognize the mind’s incapacity to apprehend metaphysical realities through innatist independent inquiry. We believe it is capable (by being equipped by God) of realizing His existence and some of His essential attributes, but completely dependent on the revelation for a more detailed and robust recognition of Him (exalted is He).
Finally, I would like to note here that those of our beloved imams who erred in this issue will not be deprived of the one reward Allah promised the qualified mujtahids of when they exert their due diligence in pursuing the truth.
Allah knows best.