The earth sits at the very centre of the heavens, like a melon nestled inside another melon; the sky envelopes it from every side. The lowest point of the created cosmos is therefore the innermost core of the earth—its centre—which marks the furthest limit of “below” and “beneath.” Beyond that point nothing can properly be described as “beneath”; rather, it must be “above.” Thus, were we to imagine boring a tunnel through that centre, the nadir of the universe, the breach would already be opening toward the direction of “above,” and if the tunnel were to pierce on through to the sky on the far side, it would emerge into the realm that is likewise “above.”¹

The proof is this: suppose a traveller set out across the globe from the east toward the west, and continued his journey until he returned to the very spot from which he had departed. Along the way he would have passed over portions of the sphere that an on-looker might think lie “under” him; yet throughout his voyage the ground remained beneath his feet and the sky overhead. Hence the sky that sensory perception registers as being “under” the earth is in reality above it, not below, for the sky is, by its very nature, above the earth. Wherever you posit the sky, it is above the earth.

He then said:

“If this body—the sky—enjoys an intrinsic elevation over the earth, how much truer must that elevation be of Him to whom nothing is comparable, whose transcendence over all things is intrinsic! As the Exalted has said, ‘Glorify the Name of your Lord, the Most High’ (Qur’an 87:1). The Majestic Qur’an repeatedly speaks of His being above: ‘They fear their Lord above them’ (Qur’an 16:50)… Because His ‘aboveness’ and loftiness over everything are essential to Him. He is the Most High by His very being, and height is the attribute that befits Him, just as lowness, sinking, and abasement are inherently proper to created things in relation to the rank of His Lordship, His greatness, and His exaltation.

Height and lowliness thus mark the boundary between the Creator and the creation: He, exalted is He, is high by essence, exactly as He was before the worlds existed, while everything other than Him depends on Him by its very essence. He, exalted be He, is the Most High above His Throne, directing every affair from heaven to earth; then those affairs ascend back to Him. He gives life to one and causes death to another, afflicts one with illness and heals another, honours this one and humiliates that one. He is the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining; He subsists in and of Himself, while all things subsist through Him.