So, after this, your saying, “If He were to the right or left of the world,” is even less tenable than your saying, “If He were inside the world.” The world has an inside, but it has neither a right nor a left. It is possible to posit something existing inside the world, but impossible to posit something existing to its right or left, as you yourself have established.

The third response: Suppose that you called the surfaces of the world “right” or “left” in a relative sense, despite its being spherical. Yet the surfaces of the world are equally high: nothing is higher than what you designate as its right or left. We have previously mentioned the Prophet’s words (may Allah bless him and grant him peace):

“When you ask Allah for Paradise, ask Him for al-Firdaws, for it is the highest and most central part of Paradise, and the roof of Paradise is the Throne of the Most Merciful.”

He thus identified the highest part as the central part. We have explained that this is possible only in a spherical body, since its center can be its highest point. Likewise, whatever is considered to be to its right or left would also be at its top, even if it were not at its center.

Thus, his statement, “Supposing that Allah’s Essence were to be to the right or left of the world, He would not be described as being above the world,” is false in light of what he himself has established and what mathematicians agree upon. Indeed, the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) stated that His Throne is over His heavens like a dome. We have already presented the evidence from the Book, the Sunnah, and the consensus based on rational calculation that the celestial spheres