his feet, just as the sky is, in itself, above the earth. Neither of these two men is actually beneath the other at all. Rather, Sijjīn, which is the lowest of the low, is beneath them both. If two heavy objects descended from their respective locations, they would reach the lowest of the low, namely Sijjīn; the two heavy objects would not meet. But if the earth were hypothetically pierced through and they met there, the feet of one man would face the feet of the other. If we supposed that the earth were pierced through for one of them so that he could pass through its interior and reach the other, his feet would meet the other man’s feet. In this respect, each imagines that the other is beneath him, aligned with the direction of his feet.

Downward movement, however, is movement towards the bottom and depths of the earth. From there onward, movement is upward, like the movement of someone ascending from the earth to the sky. Someone moving in this manner from the bottom and depths of the earth towards its surface and upper side would thus be like a person suspended with his feet towards the sky and his head towards the earth, or like an ant moving along the underside of a ceiling, with the ceiling aligned with its feet. In this respect, the sky comes to be aligned with his feet and the earth with his head. It is on this basis that the sky is said to be beneath him and the earth above him when he is