Re: various ‘schools’ of thought in Islam
Brother Salaam.
Actually, I believe that Allah is everywhere, at all places. Only thing is that, according to our belief, Allah is not a created being, have no physical body. His presence is beyond most people’s understanding, but nevertheless he is there, everywhere place and space exists.
When we say that something reached Allah, it is not about reaching after covering a measurable distance, but between Allah and his creations there are layers and layers of curtains. Reaching Allah is passing through these curtains towards Allah … not travelling physical or measurable distance.
Since Allah is everywhere, one cannot give any direction to him, neither can restrict him within perimeter or body. His presence in every sense is unrestricted without any sort of constraint or confinements. His existence do not even depends on his creation being there or not (that includes arsh, farsh, kursi or whatever), as he is beyond the existence of his creation, neither depends in anyway on his creations, and that is the reason, his state never changes, be that before he created anything or after he destroys all his creation, that is why we believe that Allah is what he was and will be what he is.
Actually, people who give direction to Allah, contains Allah in that direction, and those who give place to Allah (claiming that Allah is somewhere and not everywhere), contains Allah at a particular place in space. In both cases, these people (knowingly or unknowingly) give perimeter to Allah … that means outer boundary or body of some sort to Allah, as only body with perimeter would have direction and can be constrained in place needing space. Such being cannot be creator, as such being would be depending on space for own existence, and certainly space would be bigger for such being to create. Further, when space is bigger than such being, could have other beings along with such being, and that means, such being is not all powerful and may not be without partners.
In Islam, we believe that Allah created everything, has no partners neither could have partners, is most powerful, and depends on nothing. So, people with such belief, that Allah is not everywhere but is at a place in particular direction, cannot be Muslim (at best, they are misguided Muslims).