is called “in front”; whatever is behind it is called “behind”; whatever is to its right is called “right”; whatever is to its left is called “left”; whatever is above its head is called “above”; and whatever is beneath its feet is called “below.” These are relative designations. Consider: if a man were suspended with his feet towards the sky and his head towards the earth, would the sky not still be above him, even though his feet faced it? Likewise, if an ant or another creature walked beneath a ceiling with its feet towards it and its back towards the earth, the upward direction would lie towards its feet, although still above it. The lowest of the low ultimately lies in the depths of the earth.

As for the stars in the sky, although some are aligned with our heads and others are in the other half of the celestial sphere, none of them is beneath anything; rather, they are all above us in the sky. Now, when a person envisages this, relative lowness immediately comes to mind. This is the argument advanced by the Jahmī who denied Allah’s being above His Throne and misled those unfamiliar with the matter into imagining that anyone who says, “Allah is above the Throne,” has thereby placed Him beneath half of creation or made Him another celestial sphere. Exalted is Allah above what the ignorant person says!

If anyone supposes that the position of the people of Islam entails things unbefitting Allah, these are not, in fact, necessary implications. Rather, this is corroborated by the hadith narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad, through al-Hasan from Abū Hurayrah, and also narrated by al-Tirmidhī in the hadith concerning lowering;