Hadith of the descent and the sphericity of the Earth!

 

In the famous hadith:
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said : “Allah descends to the lowest heaven every night when the first third of the night has passed. He says: ‘I am the King, I am the King. Who is it that calls upon Me that I may answer him? Who is it that asks of Me that I may give him? Who is it that seeks My forgiveness that I may forgive him?’ And he continues like this until dawn breaks.”
Narrated by: Abu Hurairah Narrator: Muslim - Source: Sahih Muslim - Page or number: 758
Summary of the hadith’s ruling: Authentic

How do we reconcile the descent of the Lord, the Blessed and Exalted, with the sphericity of the Earth ?


Answer:

An introduction that is necessary.

When the servants stand in prayer before their Lord, the Glorified and Exalted, at a specific time, does Allah see all of them at the same moment, or does Allah see only one of them and is unable to see, hear, and know all of them, one by one, at the same moment?! .. Let us suppose that during the prayer of these people, other people in another region on the face of the Earth stood up to perform the prayer.. Will God turn away from those people and turn to those who have begun to pray, or does God see all of these people and hear them and know about them at the same moment and with the passage of time and the difference in places?!

The gist of what I want to say and point out in this introduction is: God’s actions are not like our actions… and His attributes, the Almighty and Majestic, are not like our attributes… If one of us cannot look at two different people at the same time - or more - and converse with them or approach them and go to them and stay with them, and cannot imagine that happening… then this cannot be generalized to God Almighty… that is, one cannot compare God’s actions to the actions of His creatures, nor His holy self, nor His perfect attributes… Rather, God at the same moment sees, hears, and knows all of His creatures despite the passage of time and the difference in places, even though we cannot imagine how that is…

and whoever says otherwise is an anthropomorphist, God forbid… It follows from his statement that God does not know some of the particulars in His heavens and earth, that is, He, the Almighty, does not encompass everything!


After this introduction, we come to the hadith of the descent .

I think the doubt has now been removed after the introduction. What we said about God seeing, hearing, and knowing His servants all at the same moment despite the passage of time and the difference in places, we say about the descent as well. God descends to these and those despite the passage of time and the difference in places on the face of the earth. This is like God seeing you in prayer, hearing you, and knowing you - to the point that you think that God is with you alone! - But He also sees others, hears them and knows about them, whether they prayed with you at the same time or started praying after you, a little or a lot, in any place on the face of the earth..

The descent of Allah, the Almighty, is a known truth, but its manner is unknown.. We do not compare the description of His descent to our actions and attributes, so we liken Him and compare Him, glory be to Him, to His creations, for He is the One Who is not like anything.. And we do not interpret the description of His descent, so we disable what was proven for Him, the One Who does not speak from desire, may the prayers and peace of my Lord be upon him.. Because whoever denies the descent of Allah in reality and considers this descent of His to be a metaphor - citing as evidence that his limited mind could not conceive of that - then he is obligated to do the same thing with Allah seeing, hearing and knowing all of His servants at the same moment in prayer - and outside of prayer as well - despite the passage of time and the difference in places.. And thus, He makes Allah’s knowledge limited, meaning that He, glory be to Him, does not know some details in His heavens and earth, and thus He does not encompass everything.. Glory be to Him above what they say and describe!

The bottom line is..The descent is known, but its manner is unknown. If the one asking about it had not fallen into the innovation of likening and representing - where he compared in his mind the essence of God, His attributes and His actions to His creatures and their actions - he would not have asked about it!

Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.

As for those who said that the Throne is empty of Him, their statement is false, because Allah has proven that He rose above the Throne after creating the heavens and the earth, and He did not deny this rising in the hadeeth when the Messenger (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Our Lord descends to the lowest heaven . ” So it is obligatory to leave what was as it was. Allah, the Almighty, is not like the creations; if He occupies a space, the other space is empty of Him. Yes, if we descend to a place, the other place is empty of us. As for Allah, the Almighty, He is not comparable to His creation. So this statement is false, without a doubt.
We also say with certainty that if He descends to the lowest heaven , He is not descending upon the creations, rather He is above everything, even if He descends to the lowest heaven , because Allah cannot be compared to His creation. This is what Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah ( may Allah have mercy on him) held, that the Throne is not empty of Him. However, I tend to prefer the second statement, which is to stop and not to raise this question at all. If Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Allah, when the speaker said to him: The Most Gracious has established Himself on the Throne, how has He established Himself? He said: Asking about this is an innovation, so we say about this: Asking about it is an innovation. Many people in our time have questioned: How can Allah descend to the lowest heaven when the last third of the night remains, and we know that the last third of the night is still flowing on the earth and under the heaven, so it is necessary from that that the descent to the lowest heaven is permanent? The answer to this is to say: There is no problem with Allah ’s descent in the last third despite His continuous flow on the earth, and we believe in the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): ((He descends until dawn breaks)), so if that is the case then it is obligatory for us not to exceed it, so as long as the last third of the night remains in an area of ​​the earthly regions, the descent has occurred and continues, and whenever dawn breaks in this area there is no descent , even if it is in the other direction, and Allah is capable of all things, and He, glory be to Him, cannot be compared to creation; so He descends to the heaven in the last third of the night in one direction of the earth, and He does not descend in relation to another direction in which there is no third of the night. That is why some of the Salaf said: The people who have most doubts about death are the people of theology, because they opened these problems for themselves and were unable to solve them. But if they adhered to good manners and said what Allah and His Messenger said, they would be saved from all of this. For example, if one of us is in the eastern region and the dawn call to prayer has been made, and the other is in the western region and it is the last part of the night, then we say: This is the time of the descent of our Lord, the Mighty and Sublime, for the one in the western region, and we say to the other: The time of the descent has ended.





There is no problem with this. Those who are in the last third of the night strive to supplicate because it is a time of response, while others have reached the time of revelation. We are free from these problems, and we look forward every night to the last third of the night, when it will come, so that we can supplicate to God in it.

The response can be given through a simple example, which is praying

around the Kaaba..

The Messenger says 

, "Allah commands you to pray, so when you pray, do not turn around, for Allah directs His face to the face of His servant in his prayer as long as he does not turn around."

Now that the Muslims are around the Kaaba, each of them is in a direction, so how does Allah direct His face to the face of each of them??!!

With the mentality of the objector, are you saying that the God of Islam does not know that the Qiblah around the Kaaba is circular??

This is certainly false without any kind of argument, and it cannot even be assumed by the objector.

But the response should be like the response of the brothers above, for Allah's actions are not measured like our actions..

The bottom line is that the objection is that the Earth is spherical, so how can Allah descend in the last third?? The objector justifies this by saying that this is a mistake and tries to criticize Islam. He is rewarded by saying that the qibla around the Kaaba in Mecca is circular (known), and yet God directs His face to every worshipper (and certainly the Messenger, while saying this, knows this)

, so the matter is over, praise be to God.