It is related in the Ṣaḥīḥ (1) that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The Throne of the All-Merciful shook at the death of Saʿd ibn Muʿādh.”
Al-Ḥāfiẓ, the son of Al-Ḥāfiẓ, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah (2) reports in his book Description of the Throne that some of the early generations said: the Throne is created from a red ruby, and the distance between its two extremities is a journey of fifty thousand years (3).
We have also mentioned (4), under the Almighty’s words, “The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day the measure of which is fifty thousand years” (al-Maʿārij 70:4), that the distance from the Throne to the seventh earth is a journey of fifty thousand years, and that its breadth (5) is likewise fifty thousand years (6).
A group of scholastic theologians have claimed that the Throne is a perfectly circular celestial sphere encompassing the universe from every side, sometimes calling it the ninth sphere, the atlas sphere, or the ether. This is unsound, for the revealed texts affirm that it has pillars borne by the angels, whereas a sphere possesses no pillars and is not carried. Moreover, it is above Paradise, and Paradise is above the heavens and contains one hundred levels, the distance between any two of which is like the distance between the heaven and the earth; accordingly, the space between it and the Footstool cannot be likened to the relation of one sphere to another.
Furthermore, in Arabic the word ʿarsh denotes the royal throne or couch, as in His saying: “and she had a magnificent throne” (al-Naml 27:23). It is not a celestial sphere, nor would the Arabs have understood it as such, and the Qur’an was revealed in their language. Therefore, the Throne is a throne with legs, borne by the angels; it arches over the universe like a dome, and it is the roof of all created things (7).
(1) al-Bukhārī, Manaqib al-Ansār, no. 3803; also recorded by Muslim, Sahih, no. 2466 (Virtues of the Companions); Ibn Mājah, Sunan, no. 158 (Introduction); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmi‘, no. 3848 (Virtues); and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Musnad, 3:296—all from Jabir ibn ‘Abd Allāh (may Allah be pleased with him).
(2) The author gives his biography in Wafayāt (Deaths) for the year 297 AH.
(3) The author cites this transmission from Ibn Abī Shaybah in his Tafsīr of the verse “The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him…” (4:494).
(4) Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘Aẓīm, 4:492 ff., where he presents four opinions on the measure of a day.
(5) As printed; in manuscripts A and B it reads “the hour.” His phrasing in the Tafsīr: “…and likewise the expanse of the Throne from diameter to diameter is a journey of fifty thousand years.”
(6) In manuscript B there is an addition absent from the other primary sources: “Sahl ibn Abī Khalaf said: It is made of red ruby (yahqūṭah ḥamrā’). Wahb ibn Munabbih said: It is a distance of fifty thousand years.” Ibn Abī Shaybah narrates this with a sound isnād from both. He also adds: “Qa‘nab ibn Muḥammad al-Taymī told us, al-Walīd ibn Muslim told us, Dāwūd ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Makkī narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn Zādhān, who heard from Umm Sa‘d—a woman among the Muhājirāt—who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ‘The Throne rests on an angel (malak) in the form of a rooster: its feet at the horizons of the lowest earth, its neck beneath the Throne, and its wings in the East and the West. When that angel glorifies the King, nothing remains but that it glorifies.’”
(7) Inserted in manuscript B: “Ibn Abī Shaybah on the description of the Throne: ‘Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Mu‘āwiya and Hannād ibn al-Sarī said: Abū Mu‘āwiya told us, from al-A‘mash, from Abū Nadrā, from Abū Dharr, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: “Between the earth and the heaven is five hundred years; the thickness of each heaven is five hundred years; between each heaven and the next is five hundred years; the sub-earths are the same; and the distance between the seventh heaven and the Throne is like all of that combined.”’