the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) was taken on the Night Journey, until he drew near the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary.”

He said:

“All philosophers have agreed that Allah and the angels are in heaven, just as all revealed laws have agreed on this. The misconception that led those who deny direction to deny it was their belief that affirming direction entails affirming place, and that affirming place entails affirming corporeality.”

He said:

“We say that none of this necessarily follows, for direction is not the same as place. Direction refers either to a body’s own bounding surfaces, which are six in number—in this sense we say that an animal has a top and a bottom, a right and a left, a front and a back—or to the surfaces of another body surrounding it on all six sides.

“The directions constituted by a body’s own surfaces do not constitute a place for that body at all. By contrast, the surfaces of the body surrounding it constitute its place, as with the surfaces of the air surrounding a human being. The surfaces of the celestial sphere enclosing the surfaces of the air likewise constitute a place for the air.

“Some of these celestial spheres enclose others and constitute their place. As for the surface of the outermost sphere, it has been demonstrated that there is no body outside it,