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Is "He who is in the heaven" in His saying, the Most High: (Do you feel secure that He who is in the heaven would not cause the earth to swallow you?) meant to refer to the angels entrusted with causing the earth to swallow, and not Allah the Almighty?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The proofs for Allah Almighty's transcendence and His establishment over His Throne are numerous. The Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah (Sunni Muslims) do not differ on the fact that Allah Almighty is above everything and established over His Throne. This is supported by the Qur'an, the Sunnah, scholarly consensus (Ijma'), reason, and innate human disposition (Fitra).

What is mentioned in the question, that the saying of Allah Almighty: (Do you feel secure that He who is in the heaven would not cause the earth to swallow you?) does not refer to Allah Almighty but to the angels, is a false and mendacious statement. This is because Imam Al-Tabari, Hafiz Ibn Abd al-Barr, and other esteemed scholars interpreted (He who is in the heaven) as referring to Allah Almighty.

Furthermore, other verses in the Holy Qur'an confirm that Allah Almighty is the One who causes the earth to swallow, such as His causing it to swallow Qarun, and His threatening the corrupt with being swallowed by the earth. This supports the interpretation that "He who is in the heaven" refers to Allah, the Exalted.

Prophetic hadiths explicitly state that "He who is in the heaven" refers to Allah Almighty, such as His (peace be upon him) saying: (Do you not trust me, while I am the trusted one of Him who is in the heaven?), and His saying: (Have mercy on those on earth, and He who is in the heaven will have mercy on you).

All of this clarifies the error of the mentioned claim. They do this to deny the attribute of transcendence for Allah Almighty.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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