Power and Subscript "Push" Each Other

Question

I'm facing an issue where the superscript and subscript do not align:

Now I'm using a command I defined to create this:

\newcommand{\pow}[2]{\ensuremath{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{#1}}}^{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{#2}}}}}}}
\newcommand{\sub}[2]{\ensuremath{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{#1}}}_{\reflectbox{\ensuremath{#2}}}}}}}

It's quite messy, but all it does is #1^#2 and then reflecting the whole thing, and then reflecting the individual symbols again.

Here's how I call the commands:

\[\sub{\pow{\iKaaf}{س}}{س}\]

iKaaf being the long shape--the base. Order matters. If I use pow before sub, the superscript and subscript would be pushed, just in reverse order. How could I fix this problem? Also, as a side-question, how could I make automatically scale the powers and subscripts? Using

\newcommand{\pow}[2]{\ensuremath{{{}^#2}#1}}
\newcommand{\sub}[2]{\ensuremath{{{}_#2}#1}}

works, but I cannot "nest" them into each other, since it creates problems such as these:

when \[\pow{\lSeen}{\pow{\two}{\two}}\] is used.

EDIT: MWE.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\setmainlanguage{arabic}
\setmainfont[Script=Arabic]{Amiri}
\input{commands} % where I get the pow and sub commands
\begin{document}
[\sub{\pow{\iKaaf}{س}}{س}]
\end{document}

I used egreg's answer in order to directly input Arabic in math mode.

Do you want right to left math in general or only for the sub and pow macros? — Marcel Krüger, May 03 '21 at 13:51
@MarcelKrüger Really RTL math in general. I just don't understand why that specific macro isn't working well. — Bored Comedy, May 03 '21 at 14:07
To understand why the specific macro doesn't work think about it in boxes: \reflectbox takes a box, reflects it and then outputs the reflected box. In your case you are reflecting it again, but that doesn't change that you wrapped your content in a box TeX can't really look into. So TeX more or less sees the \pow{\iKaaf}{س} as a rectangle corresponding to it's bounding box and places the subscript next to this box. — Marcel Krüger, May 03 '21 at 15:34
Is there a reason why you aren't using the built-in \mathdirection to change the math direction? — Marcel Krüger, May 03 '21 at 15:35
@MarcelKrüger Yes. My ignorance of such macro is the reason :) — Bored Comedy, May 03 '21 at 20:20
Basically you need to use LuaLaTeX and then you can set \mathdir TRT. After that, your math should be in right-to-left. (It might confuse some packages though) (Disclaimer: I can neither read nor write any right to left language, so I don't have any experience with it. I would be interested to hear if it works for you though) — Marcel Krüger, May 03 '21 at 20:48
@MarcelKrüger It works fine. It gives an error if I tried to use the XITS Math font when I try to import it using the unicode-math package, giving me errors like, "This is already defined by the amsmath or amssymb package." Eventually, I had to switch to using the Amiri font. Amiri doesn't have any RTL support for math, unlike the XITS math font, so I had to leave the amssymb and the Amiri font for the XITS math font. It works now. — Bored Comedy, May 03 '21 at 23:17

Power and Subscript "Push" Each Other

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