the motion of the ninth, even though it follows it in the overall motion, like a person moving aboard a ship in the direction opposite to its movement. Likewise, the distinctive motion of the “seventh” does not arise from the ninth or the eighth. The same applies to all the other spheres: the distinctive motion of each does not arise from the spheres above it. How, then, can the motion of the ninth alone be made the source of all events, as claimed by those who suppose that the Throne is dense?

In their view, the ninth sphere is simple, with uniform parts and no variation whatsoever. How, then, could it cause diverse things independently of the things receiving its influence and of other causes? Yet these misguided people nevertheless divide it into three hundred and sixty degrees and attribute to each degree an effect different from that of another, without any difference in the things receiving those effects. This is like someone taking a single body of water and attributing to one of its two portions an effect different from the other’s—not according to the things receiving those effects. Rather, he makes one portion impart heat, another cold, another happiness, and another misery. They themselves, and every rational person, know that this is falsehood and misguidance.

Since these people have nothing that rules out the existence of something else above the nine spheres, to assert categorically that the Messengers’ reports mean that the Throne is the ninth sphere is to speculate about the unseen and speak without knowledge.

All this assumes that the nine spheres are established as commonly described by astronomers. There is, however, disagreement and uncertainty concerning this, as well as issues concerning its proofs, which this is not the place to discuss. Our discussion is based only on