The Ever-Living, the Eternal, who has no way to perish. The saying "the Ever-Living, the Eternal, who has no way to perish..." The Mu'tazila flee from affirming for Allah a quality of existence like life that contradicts death, so they interpreted the Ever-Living as they said. And it is, according to the terminology of the theologians, that which can be known and measured. And the Sustainer is the one who constantly manages the creation and preserves it. It has been read as 'the standing' and 'the Sustainer.' And 'the drowsiness' is what precedes sleep from the fatigue that is called drowsiness. Ibn al-Ruq'a al-‘Amili said: 'The drowsiness has approached me, so it has made my eyes heavy, and I am not asleep.' This is from 'Adi ibn al-Ruq'a in his praise of Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik. And according to Al-Asma'i, it is attributed to Ahmad ibn al-Ruq'a. 'Atha' means to wander as 'sai' means to walk, and 'aath' means to corrupt, as 'aash' means to live: to walk on the path of corruption. And it has been narrated as 'perhaps' with a 's,' meaning it has appeared and spread and intensified; thus, 'perhaps' here is complete and not incomplete. And 'Umm al-Qasim' is the nickname of his beloved. 'Between the women' means among the women, and it has been narrated in this way as well. And 'ahwar' is the subject of 'to lend,' and 'hura' refers to the clarity of the blackness of the eye and its whiteness. And 'al-jathr' is the plural of 'jathr,' which is the offspring of the gazelle. And 'Jasim' is a specific place. And 'wasnan' is an adjective for 'ahwar.' And 'to aim at a man' means if you stab him, you do not miss his target, meaning he was struck by drowsiness, which is what precedes sleep from fatigue and lapses. And 'to make water turbid' means to disturb. And 'to become turbid' means to be disturbed. And 'to disturb' and 'to make turbid' means to make it cloudy, and 'the bird's turbidness' means when it stands in the air, spreading its wings, wanting to fall. So the meaning is: drowsiness stood in his eye. It is also possible that the meaning is: his eye became turbid with drowsiness, meaning it was clouded. And 'in' was inserted because he made the eye a container for the turbidness, and this suggests a comparison of the eye to water in its clarity. And 'the drowsiness' is from 'wasn,' so it is 'wasnan,' and it is from the category of numbers. And the cause of sleep is a wind that occurs in the membranes of the brain, and when it reaches the eye, it becomes fatigued; this is the drowsiness. And when it reaches the heart and settles in it, the perception of the senses disappears; this is sleep, and that is why it was denied while affirming the drowsiness. That is, He does not experience drowsiness or sleep, which is an affirmation of the Sustainer, for whoever is subject to that cannot be a Sustainer. Among them is the hadith of Musa: he asked the angels, and that was from his people like the request for vision: Does our Lord sleep? So Allah revealed to them to wake Him three times and not let Him sleep. Then He said: 'Take in your hand two bottles filled.' So he took them, and Allah caused drowsiness to come upon him, so he struck one against the other, and they broke. Then He revealed to him: 'Tell these that I hold the heavens and the earth by My power; if I were to experience sleep or drowsiness, they would cease to exist.' I said: The saying 'and that was from his people like the request for vision' is from the words of Al-Zamakhshari, which he included in the narration. It has been narrated by Abdul Razak in his Tafsir from Ma'mar from Al-Hakam ibn Aban from Ikrimah from Ibn Abbas regarding the saying of Allah: 'Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep' that Musa asked the angels: Does Allah, the Exalted, sleep? And he mentioned it. It has also been narrated by Abu Ya'la, Al-Tabari, Al-Daraqutni in the unique narrations, Ibn Mardawayh, and Al-Bayhaqi in the attributes, all from the route of Ishaq ibn Abu Israel from Hisham ibn Yusuf from Umayyah ibn Sabl from Al-Hakam ibn Aban from Ikrimah from Abu Huraira: I heard the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, narrate from Musa, peace be upon him, that it occurred to Musa: Does our Lord sleep? So he sent an angel to keep him awake, then He gave him two bottles, one in each hand, and commanded him to be careful with them. He said: So he kept falling asleep, and his hands were almost meeting, and he would wake up, holding one on the other until he fell into a deep sleep. His hands clapped together, and the two bottles broke. He said: Allah set an example for him: If Allah were to sleep, the heavens and the earth would not remain in place.' And Al-Bayhaqi narrated it as a suspended narration and said: This is the more likely. And Al-Daraqutni said: Al-Hakam uniquely narrated it from Ikrimah and his mother from Al-Hakam and Hisham from Umayyah. And Al-Khatib said:

It was narrated by Ma'mar from al-Hakam from 'Ikrimah from his saying. He did not mention Abu Hurairah. Nor the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him. I said: And the narration of 'Abd al-Razzaq contradicts him. However, it is suspended. Ibn al-Jawzi mentioned it in al-'Ilal al-Mutanahiya and said: It seems that 'Ikrimah received it from the books of the People of the Book. He said: And 'Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrated in his book al-Sunnah from Sa'id ibn Jubayr that the Children of Israel said to Musa, peace be upon him: Does our Lord sleep? He said: And this is the correct one. "Who is it that can intercede with Him" is a clarification of His sovereignty and grandeur, and that no one can speak on the Day of Resurrection except if permission is granted to him to speak, as His saying, "They do not speak except for whom the Most Merciful has permitted." He knows what is before them and what is behind them, what was before them and what will be after them. The pronoun refers to what is in the heavens and the earth because they contain the rational beings, or to what is indicated by "Who is it" from the angels and the prophets from His knowledge of what He knows except by what He wills. The kursi: what one sits upon, and it does not exceed the seat of the sitter. In His saying, "His kursi extends over the heavens and the earth," there are four opinions. [Mahamud, may Allah have mercy on him, said: "And in His saying, 'His kursi extends over the heavens and the earth,' there are four opinions..." Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: The first opinion is that this is an illustration of greatness, which is a lack of etiquette in expression and a distance in harm, for illustration is only used in falsehoods and what does not have a true reality. If what he said is correct, he has erred in expressing it with a phrase that is misleading and has no place in legal etiquette, and similar examples will come that require etiquette to be avoided.] One: that His kursi did not become narrow due to the heavens and the earth because of its vastness and breadth, and it is only a depiction of His greatness and mere imagination, and there is no kursi there nor sitting nor sitter, as in His saying, "And they did not appraise Allah with true appraisal, and the earth entirely is His grasp on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens are folded in His right hand" without imagining a grasp or folding or right hand, but it is an illustration of the greatness of His affair and a sensory representation. Do you not see His saying, "And they did not appraise Allah with true appraisal?" The second: His knowledge is vast, and knowledge is called a kursi by naming it after its place, which is the kursi of the world. The third: His kingship is vast, naming it after its place, which is the kursi of kingship. The fourth: It is narrated that He created a kursi that is before the Throne, beneath the heavens and the earth, and it is to the Throne as the smallest thing. And from al-Hasan: the kursi is the Throne. And He is not burdened by them, nor does it weigh upon Him, nor is it difficult for Him to preserve them, the preservation of the heavens and the earth, and He is the Most High, the Great, the King and the Powerful. If you say: How are the sentences arranged in the Ayat al-Kursi? [He returned to his speech and said: "If you say: How are the sentences arranged in the Ayat al-Kursi and why are they not connected by 'and'? I say: Because they are all in the status of clarification, and the clarification is unified with the clarified, so the entrance of 'and' between them— as the Arabs say— is an entrance between the stick and its bark. The first is a clarification of His standing in managing creation and His being in control of it without being heedless of it, the second for His being the owner of its management, the third for the grandeur of His affair, the fourth for His encompassing the conditions of creation, and the fifth for the vastness of His knowledge and His connection to all knowledge. There have been reports about its virtue. Among them is His saying, peace be upon him: "This verse was not recited in a house except that the devils avoided it for thirty days, and no magician or witch enters it for forty nights. O Ali, teach it to your children, your family, and your neighbors, for no verse has been revealed greater than it." And about Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, I heard your Prophet saying on the pulpit: "Whoever recites Ayat al-Kursi after every obligatory prayer, nothing prevents him from entering Paradise except death, and no one persists in it except a truthful person or a worshipper. And whoever recites it when he goes to bed, Allah grants him safety for himself and his neighbor and his neighbor's neighbor and the houses around him." And the companions discussed the best in the Qur'an, and Ali said: Where are you from Ayat al-Kursi? Then he said: The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: "O Ali, the master of mankind is Adam, and the master of the Arabs is Muhammad, and there is no pride; and the master of the Persians is Salman, and the master of the Romans is Suhayb, and the master of the Abyssinians is Bilal, and the master of the mountains is Mount Sinai, and the master of the days is Friday, and the master of the speech is the Qur'an, and the master of the Qur'an is al-Baqarah, and the master of al-Baqarah is Ayat al-Kursi." It was preferred because it was preferred for what Surah al-Ikhlas was preferred, for its inclusion of the oneness of Allah, His glorification, and His majesty and His greatest attributes." Ahmad said: My grandfather, may Allah have mercy on him, used to say: Ayat al-Kursi contains what no other verse contains of the names of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, for it contains seventeen instances of the name of Allah, the Exalted, some of which are apparent and some hidden, and it is apparent to many of the common people from them sixteen except to one with sharp insight for its subtle extraction. The first is Allah, the second is He, the third is the Living, the fourth is the Sustainer, the fifth is the pronoun 'He does not take,' the sixth is the pronoun 'for Him,' the seventh is the pronoun 'with Him,' the eighth is the pronoun 'except by His permission,' the ninth is the pronoun 'knows,' the tenth is the pronoun 'His knowledge,' the eleventh is the pronoun 'wills,' the twelfth is the pronoun 'His kursi,' the thirteenth is the pronoun 'and He is not burdened,' the fourteenth is 'He,' the fifteenth is the Most High, and the sixteenth is the Great. These are the number of the clear names. As for the hidden, it is the pronoun contained in the source in the saying: "His preservation of them," for it is a source added to the object, which is the prominent pronoun, and it must have a doer, which is Allah, and it appears when the source is broken down, saying: "And He is not burdened to preserve them." And Sheikh Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abi al-Fadl al-Mursi sought to increase this number when I informed him about my grandfather, may Allah have mercy on him, saying: It is possible to count what is in the verse from the derived names, each one of them with two verses. Because each one carries a pronoun by necessity of being derived, and that pronoun returns to Allah, the Exalted, and it is in terms of its appearance a name and has included another hidden, so the total count in this regard would be twenty-one names. And I had discussed with him regarding the mentioned increase a subtle point, which is that the derived name does not carry the pronoun after it becomes a name in the most correct view, and all these attributes are names of Allah, the Exalted. And even if we assumed them to carry the pronouns after the naming in a manner of descent, the derived name only applies to its described one in terms of carrying its pronoun. Do you not see when you say:

Zayd is generous. The term "generous" applies to Zayd, because it contains his pronoun. Even if you disregard him, you would not find it exclusive to Zayd. Rather, you may apply it to every person described by generosity. You would not find it exclusive to Zayd except by considering its inclusion of his pronoun. Thus, the derived term is not independent in its application to its described entity except by the addition of the pronoun to it. It cannot be assigned the status of independence from the pronoun while still being referred back to a specific individual. The mentioned scholar was pleased with this discussion and approved it, and may Allah grant success to what is correct. As for the absence of a conjunction, I say: there is no sentence among them except that it is presented as clarification for what follows it, and the clarification is unified with the clarified. If a conjunction were to be placed between them, it would be as the Arabs say: "between the stick and its bark." The first is a clarification of His management of creation and His being in control of it without being heedless of it. The second is due to His ownership of what He manages. The third is for the greatness of His matter. The fourth is for His encompassing knowledge of the states of creation, and His knowledge of those among them who are worthy of intercession, and those who are not worthy. The fifth is for the vastness of His knowledge and His connection to all that is known, or for His majesty and great status. If you say: why is this verse preferred, as it has been reported regarding its virtue that the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, said: "No house has this verse recited in it except that the devils flee from it for thirty days, and no magician or sorceress enters it for forty nights. O Ali, teach it to your children, your family, and your neighbors. No verse has been revealed greater than it." And from Ali, may Allah be pleased with him: I heard your Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, on the pulpit saying: "Whoever recites Ayat al-Kursi after every obligatory prayer, nothing prevents him from entering Paradise except death, and none persist in it except a truthful person or a worshipper. Whoever recites it when he lies down, Allah grants him safety for himself, his neighbor, his neighbor's neighbor, and the houses around him." The narration was reported by al-Bayhaqi in al-Shu'ab through Ibn Ishaq from Habba ibn Juwayn al-'Urfi. I heard Ali ibn Abi Talib say: and he mentioned it without saying "and none persist in it except a truthful person or a worshipper" and mentioned what follows it. In its chain is Nahshil ibn Sa'id, who is abandoned. Likewise, Habba al-'Urfi, and it was also narrated from Anas with the wording: "Whoever recites Ayat al-Kursi after every obligatory prayer is protected until the next prayer, and none maintains it except a Prophet, truthful person, or martyr." Its chain is weak, and the beginning of the hadith was narrated by al-Nasa'i and Ibn Hibban from Abu Umamah, and its chain is authentic. There is a supporting narration from al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba with Abu Na'im in al-Hilya from the narration of Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi from him, and Ibn al-Jawzi overlooked it and included it in the fabricated reports. The companions, may Allah be pleased with them, discussed the best of what is in the Qur'an, and Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, said to them: Where are you regarding Ayat al-Kursi? Then he said: The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said to me: "O Ali, the leader of mankind is Adam, and the leader of the Arabs is Muhammad, and there is no pride in that. The leader of the Persians is Salman, the leader of the Romans is Suhayb, the leader of the Abyssinians is Bilal, the leader of the mountains is al-Tur, the leader of the days is Friday, the leader of the words is the Qur'an, and the leader of the Qur'an is al-Baqarah, and the leader of al-Baqarah is Ayat al-Kursi." I say: Why did he prefer Surah al-Ikhlas? Because it encompasses the oneness of Allah, His glorification, His praise, and His greatest attributes. There is no mention greater than the Lord of Glory, so whatever mentions Him is better than other mentions. And with this, it is known that the most noble of sciences and the highest in rank with Allah is the knowledge of the people of justice and oneness. Do not be deceived by the multitude of its enemies.

Indeed, the noble ones you encounter are envied. And you do not see for the lowly of people any envier. [This is attributed to Al-Mughira, a poet of the family of Al-Muhallab. It was said to Al-Muhallab: 'How many are your envyers?' So he recited this. The noble ones refer to the distinguished and honorable, and 'not' is for the emphasis of negation. It is narrated: 'And you do not see.' It is also narrated: 'You do not see.' The lowly refers to the base, and the lowly ones is its plural. And envyers - with a dammah on the 'h' - is the plural of envier. This means that there is no envier among the lowly of people, as it is a contrast of the plural with the plural. And opening it as if it were singular is more eloquent in meaning, as it negates the singular from the plural in a comprehensive negation.