lowliness and silence—is in a state that calls not for looking towards the One he invokes and petitions, but for bowing his head and lowering his gaze before him.

The prohibition against raising one’s eyes during prayer does not refute those who affirm Allah’s attributes and say that He is over the Throne, as some ignorant Jahmiyyah suppose. For the Jahmiyyah make no distinction between the Throne and the depths of the sea: all are alike. Were that so, one would not be forbidden to raise one’s eyes in one direction and commanded to turn them towards another, since both directions are alike according to the Jahmiyyah.

Moreover, were that so, the prohibition against raising one’s eyes would apply in all circumstances. Yet Allah Most High says:

“We see the turning of your face towards heaven.” [al-Baqarah: 144]

Thus, the servant is not forbidden to raise his eyes altogether; rather, he is forbidden to do so when commanded to observe humble submission, because lowering the gaze is part of perfecting that submission. As Allah Most High says:

“With their eyes humbled, they will emerge from the graves.” [al-Qamar: 7]

And Allah Most High says:

“And you will see them being exposed to it, humbled by humiliation, looking with a furtive glance.” [al-Shūrā: 45]

Furthermore, if raising one’s eyes towards heaven were forbidden while there were no God in heaven, there would be no difference between raising them towards heaven and turning them in any other direction. Had his intention been to forbid people to believe that Allah is in heaven, or to direct their hearts upwards, he would have explained that to them just as he explained all the other rulings. How could this be, when there is not a single word in Allah’s Book, the Sunnah of His Messenger, or the statements of the early generations of this community saying that Allah is not above the Throne, that He is not above heaven, or that He is neither inside the world nor outside it, nor occupying the same place as it