Abū Dāwūd (1) relates: “Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us—my father told me—Ibrāhīm ibn Ṭahmān narrated to us, from Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, from Muḥammad ibn al-Munkadir, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, that the Prophet ﷺ said:
‘I have been permitted to speak about one of Allah’s angels, a bearer of the Throne: the distance between his earlobe and his shoulder is a journey of seven hundred years.’ (2)
Ibn Abī Ḥātim also transmitted it, with the wording:
‘[Like] the swift flight of a bird—seven hundred years’ travel.’
As for the Kursī, Ibn Jarīr (3) reported—through the chain of Juwaybir, who is weak—that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī used to say, ‘The Kursī is the Throne.’ This is not authentic from al-Ḥasan; rather, what is soundly reported from him and from other Companions and Successors is that it is something other than the Throne.
Ibn ʿAbbās and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said, regarding the verse,
“His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth” (al-Baqarah 2:255),
that it means: His knowledge (4).
(1) Abu Dawud, Sunan no. 4727 (in his Sunan), graded hasan. See also al-Jami‘ al-Usul, vol. 4, p. 19.
(2) In a variant reading (version B), Muḥammad ibn Abī Shaybah records—via Yūsuf ibn Ya‘qūb al-Ṣaffār → ibn Abī Fudayk → ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Abd al-Majīd → Hishām ibn al-Ghazˀ → Makḥūl → Anas ibn Mālik—that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
“Whoever says upon waking and before sleeping: ‘O Allāh, I have reached the morning; I bear witness to You and call to witness Your angels, the bearers of Your Throne, and all Your creation that You are Allāh, there is no deity but You alone, without partner, and that Muḥammad is Your servant and messenger,’ Allāh will free one-quarter of him from the Fire. If he repeats it four times, Allāh will free him entirely.”
Two further isnāds in Ibn Abī Shaybah—one via Abū Hurayrah (through ‘Āṭā’ ibn Abī Rabāḥ → Salmān ibn al-Islām), specifying release of one-, two-, or three-thirds, and another via Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī (through Maḥmūd ibn ‘Aṭiyyah), promising deliverance after four repetitions—are also transmitted, though these latter chains are weak.
(3) In the author’s Tafsīr on the verse “His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth…” [Q 2:255], vol. 3, p. 8.
(4) Ibid., vol. 3, p. 7, which gathers many of the views the author will address here.