Quora Answer: Is Allah (s.w.t.) Everywhere & in Everything?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “For Muslims, is Allah (s.w.t.) everywhere and in everything?” 

In Sunni Islam, the theological position is that Allah (s.w.t.) is Omnipresent, meaning that there is no a place without the Presence of the Divine.  This does not mean, however, that He is physically everywhere, since Allah (s.w.t.) is beyond Creation, and is not limited to any form. 

He States, in the Qur’an: 

سُوۡرَةُ الاٴنعَام

لَّا تُدۡرِڪُهُ ٱلۡأَبۡصَـٰرُ وَهُوَ يُدۡرِكُ ٱلۡأَبۡصَـٰرَ‌ۖ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلۡخَبِيرُ (١٠٣) 

No vision can grasp Him, but His Grasp is over all vision: He is above all comprehension, yet is Acquainted with all things. (al-An’am:103) 

To put it succinctly, we use the similitude of light. We see by virtue of light, but we do not see light itself.  We recognise Allah (s.w.t.) by virtue of the Signs in Creation, but we do not see Him, because He Encompasses everything, and it is beyond the ability of Creation, the limited and relative, to comprehend the Absolute. 

Within the Wahhabi heresy, the literalist theology states that Allah (s.w.t.) literally sits on the ‘Arsh, in a place that Muhammad Naswir ad-Din al-Albani named al-Makan al-‘Adami, which is above Creation.  From the perspective of Sunni Islam, this is shirk, polytheism.