Al-Ḥasan said, “They revolve,” and Ibn ʿAbbās explained, “in a sphere like the whorl of a spindle.” They add that the clearest proof of this is that the sun sets each night in the west and, at the close of that very night, rises again in the east—exactly as Umayya ibn Abī al-Ṣalt recited:

“The sun appears at the end of every night—
Crimson, then dawn turns all her hue to rose;
She will not show herself to us upon her way
Save as a captive chastened, scourged with blows.”

As for the ḥadīth narrated by al-Bukhārī, he states: “Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf related to us; Sufyān related to us; from al-Aʿmash; from Ibrāhīm al-Taymī; from his father; from Abū Dharr, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked Abū Dharr when the sun had set, ‘Do you know where it goes?’ I replied, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’ He said, ‘It travels until it prostrates beneath the Throne and seeks permission. Permission is granted to it, but soon the time will come when it prostrates and its prostration is not accepted; it will ask leave and permission will not be given. It will then be told, “Return from where you came,” and so it will rise from the west. That is the meaning of Allah’s words: “And the sun runs to its appointed resting-place; that is the decree of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing.” (Yā Sīn 36:38)’.”

This wording appears in the chapter “The Beginning of Creation.” Al-Bukhārī also recorded it in his books of Tafsīr and Tawḥīd through the same chain. Muslim included it in “Faith,” both through al-Aʿmash and through Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, while Abū Dāwūd transmitted it via al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah; all of them trace it back to Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd ibn Sharīk, from his father, from Abū Dharr. Al-Tirmidhī declared it sound and authentic (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ).

With this established, the ḥadīth does not contradict what we have affirmed about the circular motion of the celestial spheres—which are the heavens, according to the more widely held view—nor does it prove that the Throne itself is spherical, as some have claimed (a notion we have already refuted). It does not imply that the sun rises above the heavens on our side in order to prostrate beneath the Throne; rather, it simply disappears from our sight while continuing in its own orbit, the fourth, as more than one exegete has stated. Nothing in the revealed law negates this; indeed, sensory perception