If Allah were not above, but rather were below just as He is above, with neither direction being exclusive to Him, raising one’s gaze to the sky would not be incompatible with humility in prayer; rather, it would be no different from lowering it.

The fourth point: When people raise their hands, their eyes, or anything else toward the sky while supplicating, their hearts turn toward the Lord who is above. Their limbs’ upward gestures follow their hearts’ movement upward. This is something they all experience within their hearts as a self-evident reality, except those whose innate disposition has been altered by a belief that turns them away from it.

Muhammad ibn Tāhir al-Maqdisī reported from Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar al-Hamadhānī that he attended a gathering of