OF DIRECTION This is a quality which all the people learned in Law have tried to prove, until the Mutazilites denied it, and were followed by the later Asharites, like Abul Maali and those who follow him. All the exoterics of the Law go to prove it. For God says, “And eight shall bear the Throne of thy Lord on that Day;”[82] and “He governeth all the things from heaven even to the earth: hereafter shall they return unto him, on the Day whose length shall be a thousand years, of those which ye compute.”[83] Again, He says, “The angels ascend unto him and the spirit;”[84] and, “Are Ye secure that He who dwelleth in heaven will not cause the earth to swallow you up? and behold, it shall shake.”[85] There are many other verses of this kind which, if interpreted, would turn the whole of the Law into interpretation; and if taken allegorically, would make it an allegory. All the religious laws are based upon the principle that God is in heaven, from whence he sends down angels to His Prophets with revelations, that from the heaven, the religious books used to descend, and that towards it was the Night Journey of the Prophet, till he reached near the lote-tree. All the philosophers are, moreover, agreed that God and His Angels are in heaven, as is the case with all the religions. The doubt which led them to deny this idea of direction was that they thought that by believing in direction it would be necessary to believe in space, which in its turn leads to a belief in anthropomorphism. But we say that this is not necessarily the case, for direction can exist without space. It is nothing but the surfaces of the body surrounding it, which are six in number. That is why we say that there is an above and a below, right and left and before and behind for an animal. Or they are the surfaces of a body surrounded by another body having the above-mentioned six directions. So the directions, which are the surfaces of the body itself, are not the spaces of the body in any respect. But the surfaces of the surrounding bodies are space for it. The atmosphere surrounding man, and the surfaces of the sky surrounding the surfaces of the atmosphere, for they are the spaces for it. Such is also the case with different surrounding and forming spaces for one another. As to the last sky it is evident that beyond it there must be no body. For had it been so, it would be necessary that beyond it be another body and so on to infinity. So there is no space at all for the last body of the universe, for it is not possible that in it be found any body, it being necessary that there be found a body in every space. So when there is an argument for the existence of a thing in that direction, it is necessary that it be not a body. So one who denies His existence there goes against his own ideas. He is existent, has a body, is not existent without a body. They cannot say that beyond the universe is a void.