In this excerpt from his book of admonitions, Samarqandī relates the order in which the angels descend to earth: those of the lowest heaven surround the earth, followed by those of each successive heaven, “until there are seven rows (ṣufūf) of angels, enclosing one another in their midst (baʿḍuhum fī jawf baʿḍ).” In his chapter comparing earthly justice with heavenly justice in the early Islamic imagination in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Christian Lange draws on this source to discuss medieval Muslims’ conceptions of the spatial organization of the heavenly court on the Day of Judgment.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the book Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, ed. Intisar A. Rabb and Abigail Krasner Balbale(ILSP/HUP 2017)—a collection of primary sources and other material used in and related to the book.