Ayat al-Kursi

Ayat al-Kursi is a single verse, Quran 2:255, yet Muslim tradition sets it above every other passage in the book. In a narration preserved in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet asks his companion Ubayy ibn Ka'b which verse of God's book is greatest, and when Ubayy answers that it is the Throne Verse, the Prophet congratulates him on his knowledge. The verse itself is a compressed theology.

God is introduced by the two names al-Hayy and al-Qayyum, the Living and the Self-Subsisting, and the verse then walks through his attributes, that neither slumber nor sleep overtakes him, that everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to him, that no one intercedes with him except by his permission, that he knows what lies before and behind his creatures while they grasp nothing of his knowledge except what he wills. At its centre sits the image that gives the verse its name, the kursi, throne or footstool, which extends over the heavens and the earth, whose keeping does not weary him. Commentators have read the kursi variously, some as a created reality distinct from the throne proper, others as a figure for God's knowledge or sovereignty, a debate carried through the classical commentaries without ever disturbing the verse's devotional standing.

No verse of the Quran is more thoroughly woven into daily Muslim practice. Devotional custom, grounded in the hadith literature, commends reciting Ayat al-Kursi after each of the five obligatory prayers and before sleep. Sahih al-Bukhari preserves the story behind the bedtime usage, in which Abu Hurayra, set to guard the alms of Ramadan, three times catches a night thief, and the thief finally buys his release by teaching him that whoever recites the Throne Verse at night will have a guardian from God until morning and no devil will approach him.

When Abu Hurayra reports this, the Prophet confirms that the wretched visitor told the truth, and identifies him as Satan. From this protective reputation flows the verse's enormous material presence in Muslim life. It is among the most common texts of Islamic calligraphy, circling domes and mihrabs, framed in homes, and rendered in every classical script. It is worn as jewellery and carried on cards, hung in vehicles, and recited over the fearful and the sick. Memorization is near universal among practising Muslims, and reciters give the verse special care, so that a passage of perhaps fifty Arabic words functions simultaneously as creed, amulet, ornament and daily liturgy across the Muslim world.