people imagine. Because sometimes what is understood is not what was intended. What we know about this matter is as follows:

Qāf Mountain is the Himalaya mountain range, which covers most of the East and in olden times divided the civilised peoples from the nomadic ones, and is the mother of the Chamus, [^35] the highest mountains in the world. It is said that most of the mountains of the world branched out from this range (lit. from its "roots"). This shows that the famous fanciful idea that Qāf encompasses the world must have originated from this branching out.

[^35]:Çamular in the original. This probably refers to Jammu, as in Jammu and Kashmir, a state in northern India, situated mostly in the Himalaya mountains.

And secondly, the World of Similitudes solves the riddle, since it resembles the Manifest World in form and the World of the Unseen in meaning. Whoever wishes may behold that world to a degree through the window of true visions, the aperture of true dreams, the telescope of transparent objects, or at least beyond the veils of imagination. There are numerous indications that the World of Similitudes exists and that meanings are embodied in it. Hence, the Qāf on the earth may be the seed of the wonderful Qāf on that world.

Moreover, the Maker's dominions are extensive and not restricted to this lowly globe. As for space, it is Allah's world and truly vast, and may contain Qāf with its wonders. But it is not reasonably impossible to touch the heavens, which are "a wave rolled back," although they are a five-hundred-year distance from the earth, reckoned in "the days of God." For like the heavens, Qāf may be transparent and invisible.

And fourthly, why shouldn't Qāf consist of a mighty mountain chain, manifested from the sphere of the horizon? Just as the horizon's name may be a source of Qāf, for wherever one looks a band of ranges appears like concentric circles. They gradually disappear from sight and hand over to the imagination. Finally the imagination conceives of an encompassing circle of mountain ranges touching the skies. By virtue of the sphericity, even if they are five-hundred-years distant, they still appear contiguous.