The creation of the Throne and the Kursi

Chapter on what is reported about the creation of the Throne and the Kursi. Allah the Most High said: "The Exalted in Degrees, the Owner of the Throne" (Ghafir, 15). And He said: "So exalted is Allah, the True King: no god but He, the Lord of the Noble Throne" (al-Muminun, 116). And Allah said: "No god but He, the Lord of the Mighty Throne" (an-Naml, 26).

And He said: "He is the All-Forgiving, the Loving: the Owner of the Glorious Throne" (al-Buruj, 14). And the Most High said: "The Merciful established Himself upon the Throne" (Ta-Ha, 5). And He said: "Then He established Himself upon the Throne" (al-A'raf, 54). In numerous other verses of the Quran.

And the Most High said: "Those who carry the Throne, and those around it, glorify the praise of their Lord and believe in Him, and ask forgiveness for those who believed: our Lord, Your mercy and Your knowledge encompass all things" (Ghafir, 7). And the Most High said: "And eight will carry above them, that day, the Throne of your Lord" (al-Haqqa, 17). And the Most High said: "You see the angels surrounding the Throne, glorifying their Lord with praise; it is judged between them in truth, and it is said: praise to Allah, Lord of the worlds" (az-Zumar, 75). And in the supplication reported in the Sahih, the supplication of distress: "No god but Allah, the Immense, the Forbearing; no god but Allah, the Lord of the Mighty Throne; no god but Allah, the Lord of the heavens, the Lord of the earth, and the Lord of the Noble Throne."

The greatness of the Throne and the distances

Imam Ahmad reported: Abd al-Razzaq told us, from Yahya ibn al-Ala, from his uncle Shu'ayb ibn Khalid, from Simak ibn Harb, from Abdullah ibn Amirah, from Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib who said: we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) at al-Batha when a cloud passed. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Do you know what this is? We said: the clouds. He said: "And the muzn?

We said: the muzn. He said: "And the anam? We fell silent. He said: "Do you know what is between the sky and the earth?

We said: Allah and His messenger know best. He said: "Between the two is the journey of five hundred years; and from each sky to each sky, the journey of five hundred years; and the thickness of each sky, the journey of five hundred years. And above the seventh sky is a sea whose bottom and top are as [the distance] between the sky and the earth; then above that, eight young bulls: between their hooves and their horns, as [the distance] between the sky and the earth; then above that, the Throne, whose bottom and top are as [the distance] between the sky and the earth. And Allah is above that, and nothing of the works of the sons of Adam is hidden from Him.

That is the wording of Ahmad, reported also by Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah and at-Tirmidhi from Simak with a chain like it; at-Tirmidhi said: "a hassan hadith". Sharik reported part of this hadith from Simak and stopped at him. The wording of Abu Dawud: "Do you know the distance between the sky and the earth? They said: we do not know.

He said: "The distance between the two is one, or two, or seventy-three years. The rest is similar.

Abu Dawud said: Abd al-A'la ibn Hammad, Muhammad ibn al-Muthanna, Muhammad ibn Bashshar and Ahmad ibn Sa'id al-Ribati reported to us: Wahb ibn Jarir reported to us; Ahmad said: we wrote it from his copy, and this is his wording: my father told me: I heard Muhammad ibn Ishaq narrate from Ya'qub ibn Uqba, from Jubayr ibn Muhammad ibn Jubayr ibn Mut'im, from his father, from his grandfather who said: a bedouin came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: "O Messenger of Allah, souls are exhausted, families are hungry, wealth is squandered, cattle are perishing: pray to Allah for rain for us; we will intercede by you with Allah and ask Allah to intercede for you. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Woe to you! Do you know what you say?! And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) glorified, continuing to glorify until it showed on the faces of his companions.

Then he said: "Woe to you! One does not ask Allah to intercede for any of His creation: the affair of Allah is greater than that. Woe to you! Do you know what Allah is?

His Throne is upon His heavens like this" – and he showed it with his fingers, like a dome above them – "and it groans, with the groaning of the saddle under the rider. Ibn Bashshar said in his hadith: "Allah is above His Throne, and His Throne is above His heavens. And he related the hadith, and Abd al-A'la, Ibn al-Muthanna and Ibn Bashshar said, from Ya'qub ibn Uqba and Jubayr ibn Muhammad ibn Jubayr, from his father, from his grandfather. The hadith with the chain of Ahmad ibn Sa'id is the sahih, and a group followed him on it, like Yahya ibn Ma'in and Ali ibn al-Madini.

A group of them reported it from Ibn Ishaq as Ahmad also did; the hearing of Abd al-A'la, Ibn al-Muthanna and Ibn Bashshar came from a single copy, as far as reached me. Abu Dawud alone published it. The Hafiz Abu al-Qasim Ibn Asakir al-Dimashqi composed a volume in refutation of this hadith, called "Clarification of the illusion and confusion in the hadith of the groaning", and deployed his effort in criticizing its narrator Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar, mentioning what people said about him. But this wording was reported by another way, others than Muhammad ibn Ishaq: Abd ibn Humayd reported it, Ibn Jarir in both his tafsirs, Ibn Abi Asim, at-Tabarani in his two books of the Sunna, and al-Bazzar in his Musnad, and the Hafiz Diya al-Maqdisi in his selections, by the way of Abu Ishaq al-Sabi'i, from Abdullah ibn Khalifa, from Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: a woman came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: "Pray to Allah to admit me to Paradise.

The Lord was magnified (may Allah be pleased with him) and he said: "His Kursi contains the heavens and the earth, and it has a groaning like that of a new saddle from its weight. This Abdullah ibn Khalifa is not the famous one, and his hearing from Umar requires examination; then some report it as mawquf and mursal, and some add to it a strange addition. And Allah knows best.

The description and shape of the Throne

It is established in the Sahih of al-Bukhari, from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that he said: "When you ask Allah for Paradise, ask Him for al-Firdaws: it is the highest of Paradise and its center, and above it is the Throne of the Merciful. It is reported: "and above them", with the genitive as locative; with the nominative, our shaykh the Hafiz al-Mizzi said: it is better – that is: its highest is the Throne of the Merciful. And it came in some traditions that the people of al-Firdaws hear the groaning of the Throne – it is its glorification and magnification – and that is only because of their nearness to it. And in the Sahih, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "The Throne of the Merciful trembled at the death of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh.

And the Hafiz Ibn Abi Shayba mentioned in his book on the Quality of the Throne, from some of the salaf: the Throne is created from a red ruby, the distance between its two diameters being the journey of fifty thousand years. And we mentioned, at His saying: "The angels and the spirit ascend to Him in a day whose measure is fifty thousand years" (al-Ma'arij, 4), that the distance from the Throne to the seventh earth is the journey of fifty thousand years, and that its expanse is fifty thousand years.

A group of theologians held that the Throne is a circular sphere from all its sides, encompassing the world from every direction – and sometimes they call it the ninth sphere, the atlas sphere, the ether. This is not good: it is established by the law that it has feet carried by the angels, and the sphere has no feet and is not carried; and also because it is above Paradise, and Paradise is above the heavens, containing a hundred degrees, between each two degrees as the distance between the sky and the earth – so the distance between it and the Kursi is not the proportion of a sphere to a sphere. And moreover, "arsh" in language designates the king's throne, as the Most High said: "and she has an immense throne" (an-Naml, 23) – it is not a sphere, and the Arabs do not understand that from it, and the Quran came only in the language of the Arabs. It is therefore a throne with feet carried by the angels, like a dome over the world, the roof of the creatures.

The bearers of the Throne

Allah the Most High said: "Those who carry the Throne, and those around it, glorify the praise of their Lord and ask forgiveness for those who believed" (Ghafir, 7). It was mentioned previously, in the hadith of the bulls, that they are eight, and upon their backs the Throne. And the Most High said: "and the day when eight will carry above them the Throne of your Lord" (al-Haqqa, 17).

Shahr ibn Hawshab said: the bearers of the Throne are eight: four of them say: "Glory to You, O Allah, and to You the praise: to You the praise for Your forbearance after Your knowledge"; and four say: "Glory to You, O Allah, and to You the praise: to You the praise for Your pardon after Your power." As for the hadith reported by Imam Ahmad: Abdullah ibn Muhammad – Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba – told us, Abdah ibn Sulayman from Muhammad ibn Ishaq, from Ya'qub ibn Utba, from Ikrima, from Ibn Abbas: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) confirmed Umayya ibn Abi as-Salt on a part of his poem, and he recited:

A man, and a bull beneath his right foot; and the eagle for the other, and a lion lying in wait.

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "He spoke the truth", then he recited:

The sun rises at the end of each night, reddish: its color turns white as it cools. It does not rise over them within its tether without being punished, or without being whipped.

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "He spoke the truth." It is a hadith with a sahih chain, its men reliable, and it requires that the bearers of the Throne today be four – which the hadith of the bulls contradicts, unless it is said that the confirmation of these four on these qualities does not exclude others than them. And Allah knows best.

Poems about the Throne

From the poem of Umayya ibn Abi as-Salt about the Throne, his saying:

Glorify Allah: He is worthy of glory; our Lord, in the sky, became great, by the lofty structure that dazzled people, and He placed above the sky a throne, lofty, that the eye's gaze does not reach: you see around Him the angels, forms, forms – plural of sura. And "al-ma'il al-unuq" is he who bends his neck to gaze at the height, and "ash-sharja" is the lofty and long. And "as-sarir" is the throne in the language,

And from the poem of Abdullah ibn Rawaha (may Allah be pleased with him), by which he deflected the recitation before his wife when she suspected him of his maid:

I bear witness that the promise of Allah is truth, and that the Fire is the abode of the disbelievers; and that the Throne floats above the water, and above the Throne is the Lord of our worlds; and it is carried by noble angels, the angels of the God, marked.

Ibn Abd al-Barr and more than one imam mentioned it. And Abu Dawud said: Ahmad ibn Hafs ibn Abdullah told us, my father told me, Ibrahim ibn Tahman from Musa ibn Uqba, from Muhammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jabir ibn Abdullah: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "I was permitted to relate of an angel of the angels of Allah, of the bearers of the Throne: what goes from the lobe of his ear to his shoulder is the journey of seven hundred years." Ibn Abi Hatim reported it, with the wording: "like the plumage of the bird, seven hundred years."

The Kursi and its vastness

As for the Kursi: Ibn Jarir reported by the way of Juwaybir – and he is weak – from al-Hasan al-Basri that he used to say: "The Kursi is the Throne. That is not verified from al-Hasan; rather the correct, from him and others of the Companions and the Followers, is that the Kursi is not the Throne. And from Ibn Abbas and Sa'id ibn Jubayr, concerning His saying: "His Kursi contains the heavens and the earth" (al-Baqara, 255): "it is His knowledge. And the preserved from Ibn Abbas, as al-Hakim reported in his Mustadrak, who said: "it meets the condition of the two Shaykhs", and they did not extract it from the way of Sufyan ath-Thawri, from Ammar ad-Dahni, from Muslim al-Batin, from Sa'id ibn Jubayr, from Ibn Abbas who said: "The Kursi is the place of the two feet; and the Throne, none knows its extent but Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

Shuja ibn Makhlad al-Fallas reported it in his tafsir from Abu Asim an-Nabil, from ath-Thawri, and made it a marfu'; the correct is that it is mawquf upon Ibn Abbas. Ibn Jarir reported likewise from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, al-Dahhak ibn Muzahim, Ismail ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Suddi al-Kabir and Muslim al-Batin. Al-Suddi said, from Abu Malik: "The Kursi is beneath the Throne. Al-Suddi said: "The heavens and the earth are in the interior of the Kursi, and the Kursi is before the Throne.

Ibn Jarir and Ibn Abi Hatim reported by the way of al-Dahhak, from Ibn Abbas who said: "If the seven heavens and the seven earths were spread out, then joined one to another, they would be in the expanse of the Kursi only at the manner of a ring in the desert. Ibn Jarir said: Yunus told me – Ibn Wahb reported to us – that Ibn Zayd said: my father told me that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "The seven heavens in the Kursi are only like seven dirhams cast into a shield. And Abu Dharr said: "I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) say: the Kursi in the Throne is only like an iron ring cast between two flanks of a desert.

The beginning of the hadith is mursal, and from Abu Dharr it is interrupted; it was reported from him by another way, connected: the Hafiz Abu Bakr ibn Mardawayh reported in his tafsir: Sulayman ibn Ahmad at-Tabarani informed us, Abdullah ibn Wahb al-Ghazzi informed us, Muhammad ibn Abi as-Sari informed us, Muhammad ibn Abdullah at-Tamimi, from al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ath-Thaqafi, from Abu Idris al-Khawlani, from Abu Dharr al-Ghifari who questioned the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) about the Kursi. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By He in whose hand is my soul: the seven heavens and the seven earths beside the Kursi are only like a ring cast in a desert land; and the excellence of the Throne over the Kursi is like the excellence of the desert over that ring.

And Ibn Jarir said in his Tarikh: Ibn Waki' reported to us, from his father, from Sufyan, from al-A'mash, from al-Minhal ibn Amr, from Sa'id ibn Jubayr who said: Ibn Abbas was asked about His saying: "and His Throne was upon the water" (Hud, 7) – upon what was the water? He said: "Upon the back of the wind; and the heavens, the earths and all they contain of things: the seas envelop them, and the haykal envelops all of that, and envelops the haykal – as it is said – the Kursi. And he reported from Wahb ibn Munabbih likewise, and Wahb explained the haykal and said: "a thing of the extremities of the heavens surrounding the earths and the seas, like the stakes of the tent."

Some of those who claim knowledge of astronomy have alleged that the Kursi is the eighth sphere, which they call the sphere of the fixed stars – and in their claim, examination: it is established that it is greater than the seven heavens by much, as indicated by the previous hadith: their proportion to it is like the proportion of a ring cast in a desert land, and that is not the proportion of a sphere to a sphere. So if one of them says: "we acknowledge that, and despite that we call it a sphere", we say: the Kursi is not, in language, the expression of a sphere; it is, as more than one of the salaf said: "the Kursi before the Throne, like the staircase to it" – and such a thing cannot be a sphere. And whoever among them claims that the fixed stars are inlaid in it has said what he does not know, without proof for it, with their disagreement on that too, as established in their books. And Allah knows best.