The Verse and the Plane of Reading
Ayat al-Kursi (Quran 2:255) is among the most exalted single verses of the Quran, opening with the affirmation of absolute oneness and self-subsistence — ‘God, there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting’ (Allahu la ilaha illa huwa al-hayy al-qayyum) — and culminating in the declaration ‘His Kursi extends over the heavens and the earth, and preserving them tires Him not’ (wasi’a kursiyyuhu al-samawati wal-ard wa la ya’uduhu hifzuhuma). On the zahir, the exoteric plane, the verse proclaims God’s transcendence, His untiring sustenance of creation, and the boundlessness of a knowledge that nothing escapes. Ismaili ta’wil never denies this zahir; rather, it holds with the principle of tawil-esoteric-interpretation that every revealed form (tanzil) carries an inner counterpart (batin), and that the two are bound together as body to spirit. The literal Kursi is real, but it is also a sign (mathal) pointing to a rank in the order of guidance.
The interpreters of the da’wa, following the tradition that the Footstool and the Throne are not two thrones of a corporeal God but two grades of a single descending light, distinguish al-Kursi sharply from al-Arsh. The Throne is the higher, more comprehensive locus; the Footstool, while immense — vast enough to ‘extend over the heavens and the earth’ — is the second grade, dependent upon and beneath the first. This hierarchy of two luminous ranks becomes, in the batin, the hierarchy of the two foundational figures of the religion of God in every cycle.
The Kursi as the Rank of the Asas and the Imam
In the cosmology of the hudud (see ismaili-cosmology-hudud-al-din), the spiritual world is ordered into ranks that mirror one another from the higher world to the world of the da’wa. Applied to Ayat al-Kursi, the Throne (al-Arsh) is taken to signify the Natiq, the speaking-prophet who utters the tanzil and around whom the whole structure of revelation turns; he is the most comprehensive of the human hudud and so corresponds to the highest grade. The Kursi, distinct from the Throne and beneath it yet bearing the heavens and earth, signifies the Asas — the foundation, Amir al-Mu’minin Ali ibn Abi Talib, who is the wasi (legatee) and the first holder of the ta’wil — and, through him, the unbroken line of Imams who inherit his rank. As the footstool supports and is the seat set beneath the throne, so the Asas supports the Natiq’s revelation by establishing its inner meaning, and the Imam after him sustains the religion across time.
The Kursi is specifically read as the rank that ‘encompasses the zahir of knowledge’: it bears the revealed sciences, the law and the letter, and makes them stand, just as a kursi (a seat or stand) is that upon which a thing is set firm. The phrase ‘His Kursi extends over (wasi’a) the heavens and the earth’ is read in parallel with the prophetic and Imami declaration that the Imam’s ‘knowledge has encompassed all things’ (ahata bi-kulli shay’ ‘ilman); the Imam’s ta’wil is precisely this all-encompassing knowledge, the inner science that gives the outer revelation its life and order. To know the Kursi, then, is to know the rank of walayah, for the Footstool of God’s knowledge in the world of guidance is the heart of His Imam.
Heavens, Earth, and the Untiring Guardianship of Religion
The ‘heavens and the earth’ over which the Kursi extends are themselves taken on the batin plane as the grades of the da’wa. The heavens are the higher hudud — the spiritual ranks above, the bearers of subtle knowledge — and the earth is the body of responders, the mustajibun and the community of the faithful who receive guidance and are quickened by it. The Imam’s authority and knowledge ‘extend over’ both: he orders the higher servants of the mission and nourishes the ordinary believers, so that the whole edifice of religion rests upon his sustaining rank as the heavens and earth rest beneath the Footstool. This is why the verse, on this reading, is inseparable from bayah-and-walayah: to enter beneath the Kursi is to give the covenant of allegiance to the one whose knowledge sustains the cosmos of faith.
The verse’s close, ‘and preserving them tires Him not’ (wa la ya’uduhu hifzuhuma), is read as the effortless, unceasing guardianship (hifz) that the rank of the Imam exercises over religion and over the bearers of knowledge: the protection of the deposit of guidance never fails and never wearies, for it is sustained by the same divine vastness (wasi’a) that the Imam’s encompassing knowledge reflects. In this way Ayat al-Kursi, read from within the tradition, draws the believer from the affirmation of God’s oneness at its opening to the recognition that the firmness of that tawhid in the world is secured through the Footstool of His knowledge — the Asas and the Imam — whose walayah is the throne-room in which faith is made to stand.
See also: Ismaili Tawil Of Al Lawh, Ismaili Tawil Of Al Hijab, Tawil Esoteric Interpretation, Bayah And Walayah, Ismaili Cosmology Hudud Al Din