namely the above and the below; thus the cosmos possesses only two directions.

The first of the two is the above, which is the direction of the heavens and of whatever lies beyond them.

The other (1) is the below, the direction of the earth, of what is beneath it, and of what is contained within its core. According to this meaning, anything that exists outside the cosmos, separate from it, is above it and therefore in the upper direction. Accordingly, the Creator—exalted be He—must be either distinct from the cosmos and separate from it, or not distinct and separate from it. If the first (2) alternative is affirmed, He is outside it, elevated above it in the upper direction; if the second, He would be indwelling within the cosmos, subsisting in it and borne by it.

These thinkers say: All of this is evident by innate rational intuition. Before the Creator fashioned the cosmos, He alone—glorified is He, without partner—existed. When He brought the creation into being, He did not create it within His Essence, thereby becoming the locus of created things, nor did He place His Essence inside it, thereby becoming dependent, borne, and sustained by manufactured entities. Rather, He created it apart from Himself, so that it remains beneath Him while He is in the direction of (3) above.

We have expounded at length the arguments of these scholars and of their opponents in al-Ḥukūmah al-ʿĀdilah, in connection with what al-Razi records in his Taʾsīs regarding this debate (4).

Since this is the case, whoever summons people to the belief that direction is to be negated must either join them in examining these subtleties and uncovering these realities, or else turn away from such matters and remain with the broad formulations at which the believers (5) themselves have stopped. But to call people (6) to a doctrine whose reality and subdivisions he does not clarify, and whose proof that validates his objective he does not set forth