Al-Buruj · Makki · ayah 15 of 22

Al-Buruj 85:15

ذُو ٱلْعَرْشِ ٱلْمَجِيدُ

“Honorable Owner of the Throne,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every throne a tyrant sits on can topple; the Owner of the Throne is the Glorious, whose fullness overflows as good.

A reflection

The throne that cannot topple

The Arabs used ʿarsh for a king's throne. They also used it for humbler things, raised and roofed. A shade of palm sticks and grass. A trellis lifting a vine. The wooden head over a well, where the one drawing water stood. Pull away the props and it falls. So when they said a man's ʿarsh had toppled, they meant his power and standing had collapsed.

The Quran uses the word that way too. Ruined towns lie 'fallen upon their roofs', their ʿurūsh (2:259). The throne of the Queen of Sheba is carried off in the blink of an eye (27:38–40). Human thrones change hands, crack and fall.

The king in this surah had a throne. He used it to dig trenches at the mouths of his streets. Three ayat later comes Pharaoh, who had another. Both are gone. The throne they sat on had props, and the props were removed.

Offices have thrones too. A head of department retires. Within a week his name has been peeled off the door, and the new occupant has moved the desk to the window. For thirty years that chair told him who he was. It did not remember him for a fortnight.

This ayah names Allah dhū al-ʿarsh: the Owner of the Throne. The classical commentators describe the Throne as the greatest of created things. Some also hear in the phrase the Owner of all dominion and authority, the way people say a ruler sits on his throne. One lexicon says people know the Throne only by its name. We affirm what the ayah says and leave its reality to Him.

What the ayah does to the ego is simple. Every chair we sit in is on loan and on props. The title, the corner seat, the say in how things are done: they will be handed on, and quickly. The ego builds itself a small throne and forgets that it can topple. Remembering His Throne is how we learn to sit lightly on ours, and to stand humbly beside those who have no seat at all.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.