, exalted is He:

“And it is He who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each floating in an orbit.”

Ibn ‘Abbās said: “A whorl, like the whorl of a spindle.” In Arabic, falak means something round. Hence the expression tafallaka thady al-jāriya: “The young woman’s breast has become rounded.” Everyone who knows that the celestial spheres are round knows that the encompassing sphere is above its centre on every side. In their view, anyone who imagines that someone on one side of a celestial sphere actually has someone on its opposite side beneath him is mistaken.

Since this is so, if the Throne is assumed to be round and to encompass created things, it would be the highest of them and their roof—above them without qualification. A person could therefore turn towards it and towards what is above it only upwards, never in any other direction. Anyone who turned towards the ninth sphere, the eighth, or any other celestial sphere in a direction other than upwards would be ignorant, by the agreement of all rational people. How much more so when turning towards the Throne or towards what is above it! The most that can be supposed is that it is spherical. Allah Most High encompasses all created things in a manner befitting His majesty, for the seven heavens and the earth in His hand are smaller than a chickpea in the hand of one of us.

As for the statement: “If it is spherical, and Allah is beyond it, encompassing it and distinct from it, what is the point of a servant turning towards Allah when supplicating and worshipping Him, directing himself upwards rather than downwards? There would then be no difference, when supplicating, between turning upwards and towards the other directions that surround