the heavens and the earth.” He thus tells us that fifty thousand years elapsed between His decreeing and His creation of the heavens and the earth. These periods were measured by movements that existed before the celestial spheres, the sun, and the moon existed.

He also tells us that the Lord’s Throne was then upon the water.

Well-known reports likewise state that water covered the surface of the earth and that He created heaven from the smoke of that water.

The beginning of the Torah contains precisely the same account: in the beginning, Allah created the heavens and the earth; the earth was submerged in water, and the wind blew over the water. It then describes in detail the creation of this world.

Thus, these reports transmitted from the prophets state that earth, water, and air existed before the creation of this world, and that Allah created those bodies from bodies