It begins with a test. The Prophet ﷺ turned to one of his Companions, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and asked him: which ayah of the Book of Allah is the greatest? An ayah is one numbered line of the Qur'an. There are more than six thousand of them, so it was not an easy question.
Ubayy answered by reciting how one of them begins: "Allah, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer." The Prophet ﷺ struck him on the chest, the way you might clap a student on the shoulder, and said: "May knowledge be pleasing to you, O Abu al-Mundhir." Abu al-Mundhir, father of al-Mundhir, was Ubayy's name of respect.
That ayah is number 255 of the second surah, or chapter. It has its own name, Ayat al-Kursi, after one word near its end. In Ahmad's version Ubayy already calls it that. So what does it say, to earn that answer?
O Abu al-Mundhir, do you know which ayah of the Book of Allah is greatest? ... May knowledge be pleasing to you, O Abu al-Mundhir.
Sahih Muslim 810 Sahih In Sahih Muslim
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 2:255
Ubayy did not answer straight away Ibn Kathir gives the version of this report collected by Imam Ahmad, and it has a detail that is easy to miss. Ubayy's first reply was the polite one: "Allah and His Messenger know better." The Prophet ﷺ asked again, several times. Only then did Ubayy say: Ayat al-Kursi.
So the answer was not handed to him. He was pressed until he gave his own, and it was right.
Ahmad's version also has a line that the version in Sahih Muslim leaves out, as Ibn Kathir points out. In it the Prophet ﷺ swears that this ayah has a tongue and two lips, and praises Allah beside the leg of the Throne. Ibn Kathir passes the line on without comment.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir, quoting the Musnad of Ahmad and noting what Sahih Muslim leaves out
A closer look: The connection, ayah 2:255
The same opening words appear in two other surahs The ayah opens by calling Allah al-Hayy al-Qayyum: the Ever-Living, the One who sustains everything. Those two names appear together in only a few places, and early Muslims noticed.
Ibn Kathir passes on a report from a woman Companion, Asma' bint Yazid. She heard the Prophet ﷺ say that two passages contain Allah's Greatest Name: this ayah, and the opening of surah 3, which begins with almost the same words. The report is in the collections of Ahmad, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah, and al-Tirmidhi graded it hasan sahih, meaning good and sound.
A second report, which Ibn Kathir takes from Ibn Marduwayh, says the Greatest Name is in three surahs: 2, 3 and 20. One of its narrators, Hisham ibn 'Ammar of Damascus, worked out the three places himself: here, 3:1-2, and 20:111, where all faces are humbled before the Ever-Living, the Sustainer. Ibn Kathir gives no grading for this second report.
Ma'ariful Qur'an says the same of the pair of names, on the word of "several revered elders". And Sahl al-Tustari, an early Sufi commentator, says he once saw these words written across the sky in green light, from east to west, on Laylat al-Qadr , which his translator renders the Night of Great Merit. That is his own account of his own experience.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (the reports of Asma' bint Yazid and Abu Umamah, with al-Tirmidhi's grading of the first); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tafsir al-Tustari
The title "greatest ayah" comes from a question the Prophet asked, and an answer he approved.
Ten sentences, all about Allah Here is what Ubayy recited. Ayat al-Kursi has no story in it, no command and no people. It describes Allah and nothing else. The commentators count ten sentences.
There is no god but Him. He is the Ever-Living, the One who keeps everything standing. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him. Everything in the heavens and on earth is His. Nobody speaks up for anyone in front of Him unless He allows it.
He knows what lies ahead of people and what lies behind them, and they take in nothing of what He knows except what He wills. His Kursi stretches over the heavens and the earth. Guarding them does not tire Him. He is the Most High, the Most Great.
It can be read as a list of things a listener in the seventh century might have assumed about a god, each one ruled out. Gods who rest. Gods who share power. Gods who can be talked round by a favourite. In ten sentences they are all gone.
ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلۡحَيُّ ٱلۡقَيُّومُۚ لَا تَأۡخُذُهُۥ سِنَةࣰ وَلَا نَوۡمࣰۚ لَّهُۥ مَا فِي ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِۗ مَن ذَا ٱلَّذِي يَشۡفَعُ عِندَهُۥٓ إِلَّا بِإِذۡنِهِۦۚ يَعۡلَمُ مَا بَيۡنَ أَيۡدِيهِمۡ وَمَا خَلۡفَهُمۡۖ وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيۡءࣲ مِّنۡ عِلۡمِهِۦٓ إِلَّا بِمَا شَآءَۚ وَسِعَ كُرۡسِيُّهُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَۖ وَلَا يَـُٔودُهُۥ حِفۡظُهُمَاۚ وَهُوَ ٱلۡعَلِيُّ ٱلۡعَظِيمُ ٢٥٥
255 Allāh - there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is [presently] before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.
Qur'an 2:255 A closer look: How it is built, ayah 2:255
A sentence that answers the question the last one raises Both Ibn Kathir and Ma'ariful Qur'an, a twentieth-century commentary by Mufti Muhammad Shafi, split the ayah into ten sentences and go through them one at a time.
Mufti Shafi reads them as a chain. The second sentence says Allah keeps the whole universe running. He says a curious mind will naturally stray to the next thought: whoever does a job that size must get tired, and must need rest. So the third sentence deals with it at once: no drowsiness, no sleep. People, he says, should not measure Allah by themselves, and the ayah stops them.
The same thing happens further on. Everything belongs to Him, so nobody can question Him. But could someone at least put in a word for a friend? The fifth sentence: only with His permission. Mufti Shafi does not tie the ninth sentence back to the third, but it returns to the same worry: guarding the heavens and the earth does not weary Him.
Ibn Kathir makes a smaller point about the third sentence. Drowsiness is named first and sleep second, and sleep is the stronger of the two. So the sentence rules out the lighter lapse, then the heavier one.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (the ten sentences, and why the third follows the second); Tafsir Ibn Kathir (the ten sentences; sleep as stronger than drowsiness)
A closer look: How translators put it, ayah 2:255
Self-Sustaining or All-Sustaining? One word does both The two translations below differ at the second name of Allah. One has "the Self-Sustaining". The other has "All-Sustaining". They are translating the same Arabic word, al-Qayyum, and each English word catches half of it. Both footnotes give the whole: dependent on none, and sustaining all.
Ma'ariful Qur'an explains the word. It comes from qiyam, standing. A qayyum is one who stands firm by himself and keeps everything else standing, both at once. Something that depends on others to exist can hardly hold others up, so, Mufti Shafi says, the name belongs to Allah alone. He even objects to the habit of shortening the man's name 'Abdul-Qayyum, "servant of the Qayyum", to plain Qayyum.
Ibn Kathir ties the word to another ayah, 30:25: among Allah's signs is that the heaven and the earth stand by His command. The Qur'an uses the same picture of standing there.
There is one more spot. One translation says Allah knows what is "presently" before people and what will come after them. The other says what "was" before them. The Arabic gives no tense, only "in front of them" and "behind them". Ibn Kathir's English rendering and al-Jalalayn read it as this world and the next, and Ibn Kathir's comment widens it to past, present and future. Ma'ariful Qur'an adds two more readings: before a person's birth and after it, or what people can see and what is hidden from them. It says there is no contradiction, and the ayah has room for all of them.
Saheeh International
255 Allāh - there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is [presently] before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.
Rowwad Translation Center
255 Allah: none has the right to be worshiped except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth. Who is there that can intercede with Him except with His permission? He knows what was before them and what will be after them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge, except what He wills. His Kursī [i.e., footstool] extends over the heavens and earth, and safeguarding of both does not weary Him, for He is the Most High, the Most Great.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tafsir Ibn Kathir; Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Saheeh International and Rowwad translations
A closer look: The connection, ayah 2:254-255
The ayah before it had just closed the same door Ayat al-Kursi does not come out of nowhere. The ayah just before it, 2:254, tells believers to spend from what they have been given before a day comes with no trading, no friendship and no intercession. Intercession means one person speaking up for another: putting in a word.
Then Ayat al-Kursi asks: who could intercede with Him except by His permission? Al-Jalalayn's gloss on 2:254 adds the words "without His permission" after "no intercession", the same condition Ayat al-Kursi sets.
So the door is not locked. It is His to open. Ibn Kathir sets two more ayat beside this one, 53:26 and 21:28: even the angels cannot intercede until Allah gives leave. He then quotes the hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ says that on the Day of Judgement he will fall in prostration beneath the Throne until he is told: raise your head, speak and you will be heard, intercede and it will be accepted.
Wahiduddin Khan's modern commentary, Tazkirul Qur'an, draws out the practical point. He says people who are not serious about religion count on a holy person or a ritual to carry them through, and that this passage takes that comfort away.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir al-Jalalayn (on 2:254 and 2:255); Tafsir Ibn Kathir (53:26, 21:28 and the hadith of the intercession); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tazkirul Qur'an (Wahiduddin Khan)
Ten sentences, one subject: a God who needs nothing and never switches off.
The eighth sentence is the one that named the ayah: His Kursi extends over the heavens and the earth. In everyday Arabic a kursi is a chair. English usually calls this ayah the Verse of the Throne.
But the Qur'an has a different word for Allah's Throne, 'arsh. Some commentators keep the two apart, and some English commentaries simply say "throne". They asked what the Kursi is, and they did not all give the same answer.
Whatever the Kursi is, the ayah says it takes in the heavens and the earth. And the sentence that follows says that looking after all of it costs Allah no effort.
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 2:255
The Verse of the Throne may not be about the Throne Three readings of the word turn up in the commentaries read for this lesson.
The footstool. Ibn Kathir passes on the words of Ibn 'Abbas, the Prophet's ﷺ cousin and one of the earliest commentators: "Kursi is the footstool, and no one is able to give due consideration to the Throne." Ibn Kathir notes that this is Ibn 'Abbas's own saying, not something he reported from the Prophet ﷺ , and that the hadith scholar al-Hakim judged its chain sound by the standard of al-Bukhari and Muslim. Both bundled translations follow this in their footnotes: chair or footstool, not to be confused with the Throne, which is far greater.
Knowledge. Al-Jalalayn gives two views and puts this one first: "it is said that His knowledge encompasses them both", meaning the heavens and the earth. On this reading the sentence is not about an object at all.
A vast created thing, with no more said. Al-Jalalayn's second view is that the Kursi itself contains the heavens and the earth because of its sheer size. Ma'ariful Qur'an takes a similar line and adds a warning: Allah is beyond sitting and standing and being in a place, so the word must not be pictured by comparing Him to us. How Allah is, and what His attributes truly are, Mufti Shafi says, is beyond human reason. He adds that authentic reports describe the 'Arsh and the Kursi as created things many times larger than the heavens and the earth.
Ibn Kathir ends his whole commentary on the ayah on the same note from another side. He says such ayat are to be taken the way the first generations took them: accept the plain meaning, do not liken Allah to His creation, and do not explain the words away.
The translators show the difficulty. Of the two below, one leaves the word as Kursi, and the other adds "footstool" in brackets. The English of al-Jalalayn and of al-Mukhtasar, a short modern commentary, simply says "throne".
Saheeh International
255 Allāh - there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is [presently] before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.
Rowwad Translation Center
255 Allah: none has the right to be worshiped except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth. Who is there that can intercede with Him except with His permission? He knows what was before them and what will be after them, while they encompass nothing of His knowledge, except what He wills. His Kursī [i.e., footstool] extends over the heavens and earth, and safeguarding of both does not weary Him, for He is the Most High, the Most Great.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (the saying of Ibn 'Abbas, and al-Hakim's judgement of it); Tafsir al-Jalalayn (two views: knowledge, or the Kursi itself); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); al-Mukhtasar fi Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Karim (English edition); Saheeh International and Rowwad translations, with their footnotes
A closer look: The image, ayah 2:255
A ring dropped in a desert How big is "extends over the heavens and the earth"? The commentaries reach for the same kind of picture, in three versions.
Ibn Kathir gives it as a saying of Ibn 'Abbas, passed on by al-Dahhak: flatten the seven heavens and the seven earths and lay them side by side, and next to the Kursi they would be a ring lying in a desert.
Ma'ariful Qur'an gives nearly the same picture as words of the Prophet ﷺ himself, answering his Companion Abu Dharr, and names Ibn Kathir as its source: the seven heavens and the earth beside the Kursi are like a finger-ring lying on a huge plain. It adds that in other reports the Kursi beside the Throne is, again, a ring on a plain. The abridged Ibn Kathir read for this lesson does not include the Abu Dharr report, and neither book gives a grading here.
Al-Jalalayn quotes a third version as a hadith: the seven heavens beside the Kursi are like seven silver coins lying in a shield.
A ring in a desert, coins in a shield. The picture is of something small and bright that is lost in what holds it. And in the other reports Ma'ariful Qur'an mentions, the Kursi is itself a ring on a plain beside the Throne.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Ibn 'Abbas through al-Dahhak); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (the report of Abu Dharr); Tafsir al-Jalalayn (the coins in a shield)
The ayah is named after a word the commentators themselves explain in more than one way.
The thief in the storeroom The ayah did not stay a piece of theology. It went into people's nights, and the best-known reason is a strange little story that Ibn Kathir quotes from Sahih al-Bukhari.
The Prophet ﷺ had put his Companion Abu Hurayrah in charge of the food collected as charity in Ramadan , the month of fasting. At night someone crept in and began scooping it up by the handful. Abu Hurayrah grabbed him. The man pleaded: I am poor, I have a family to feed. Abu Hurayrah felt sorry for him and let him go.
In the morning the Prophet ﷺ asked: what did your prisoner do last night? Then: he lied to you, and he will be back. He was. The second night went the same way. On the third, the thief offered a trade. Let me go and I will teach you something useful: when you go to bed, recite Ayat al-Kursi to the end. Allah will set a guard over you, and no devil will come near you until morning.
Abu Hurayrah let him go again. The Prophet ﷺ said: "He spoke the truth, although he is a liar." Then he told Abu Hurayrah who he had been talking to for three nights: Shaytan , the Arabic name for Satan.
Muslims recite the ayah before sleeping, and after each of the five daily prayers, following reports like this one.
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 2:255
The advice came from a thief, and it was kept Then there is what the Prophet ﷺ does in this story. He does not tell Abu Hurayrah to ignore the advice because of where it came from. He separates the two: the speaker is a liar, and this once what he said is true.
Ibn Kathir quotes the story in full from Sahih al-Bukhari, the collection Sunni Muslims rank highest for reliability, and adds that al-Nasa'i recorded it too. One of the narrators breaks in near the end, just after Abu Hurayrah lets the man go for the sake of his advice: the Companions, he says, were very keen to do good deeds.
The promise itself is exact. Recite the ayah on going to bed, and Allah appoints a guard who stays until morning. The guard is from Allah. The words are not described as a charm that works alone.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir, quoting Sahih al-Bukhari and noting al-Nasa'i's al-Yawm wa al-Laylah
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 2:255
The same story is told of another Companion Ibn Kathir sets a second telling beside the first. This one is from Imam Ahmad's collection, and the Companion is Abu Ayyub. He had a store of dates, and something kept taking them. The report calls it a ghoul. Ibn Kathir explains the word: in Arabic it means one of the jinn , the unseen beings the Qur'an speaks of, when it appears at night.
The shape is the same. Abu Ayyub catches her, she swears she will not return, he lets her go, and the Prophet ﷺ tells him she will be back. This happens two or three times. At last she buys her freedom with the same advice: recite Ayat al-Kursi and no harm will touch you. The Prophet's ﷺ answer matches too: she is a liar, but she told the truth.
Ibn Kathir records how the two reports were graded. The Abu Hurayrah story is in Sahih al-Bukhari. Of the Abu Ayyub story, al-Tirmidhi, who also collected it, said hasan gharib: a good report, but one that reached him by a single route. Ibn Kathir calls the two "similar" and does not say whether he takes them as one event or two.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir, quoting the Musnad of Ahmad and al-Tirmidhi's grading
A closer look: The connection, ayah 2:255
Why it is said after every prayer The habit of reciting the ayah after each of the five daily prayers rests on a different report. Ma'ariful Qur'an quotes it from the collection of al-Nasa'i: whoever recites Ayat al-Kursi after every obligatory prayer, nothing stands between him and Paradise except death.
Mufti Shafi explains the odd phrasing. It means that such a person begins to see the signs of Paradise, its comfort and calm, as soon as he dies.
He quotes another report, from Abu Hurayrah: a verse in surah 2 is the sayyidah, the chief, of the ayat of the Qur'an, and Shaytan leaves a house where it is recited. The report as quoted does not name the verse. Ma'ariful Qur'an places it among the merits of Ayat al-Kursi.
Ma'ariful Qur'an gives no grading for either report, and this lesson has not checked them in the hadith collections. They are queued for a scholar.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), quoting al-Nasa'i and a report from Abu Hurayrah
Recited after prayer and before sleep, on the strength of a story with an odd teacher.
Right after: nobody is forced Now the page turns, so to speak. The ayah straight after the greatest description of Allah in the Qur'an opens like this: there is no compulsion in religion. The right way has become clear from the wrong.
It did not arrive as an abstract principle. The commentators tie it to families in Madinah, the town the Prophet ﷺ had moved to. Some Muslim parents there had children who had grown up Jewish. When the Jewish tribe those children lived among had to leave the town, the parents wanted to hold them back and bring them into Islam. The ayah came down, and the answer was no (see the closer look).
Why no force? Several commentators give the same reason. Ibn Kathir puts it this way: Islam's evidence is plain and clear, so there is no need to force anyone into it. And why here? A footnote in one of the two translations says Ayat al-Kursi has just given the clear proofs. And forcing would not work anyway. A person can be made to say words. Ma'ariful Qur'an points out that faith lives in the heart, where force does not reach.
The ayah ends with a picture. Whoever turns from false gods and believes in Allah has taken hold of the firmest handhold, one that never breaks. A handhold is something you reach for yourself. Nobody can grip it for you.
لَآ إِكۡرَاهَ فِي ٱلدِّينِۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ ٱلرُّشۡدُ مِنَ ٱلۡغَيِّۚ فَمَن يَكۡفُرۡ بِٱلطَّٰغُوتِ وَيُؤۡمِنۢ بِٱللَّهِ فَقَدِ ٱسۡتَمۡسَكَ بِٱلۡعُرۡوَةِ ٱلۡوُثۡقَىٰ لَا ٱنفِصَامَ لَهَاۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ٢٥٦
256 There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become distinct from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in ṭāghūt and believes in Allāh has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allāh is Hearing and Knowing.
Qur'an 2:256 A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 2:256
The parents who were told they could not keep their sons The report comes from Ibn 'Abbas, and it is in al-Wahidi's book on the occasions of revelation, in Ibn Kathir, who takes it from al-Tabari and adds that Abu Dawud and al-Nasa'i recorded it, and in brief in al-Jalalayn.
Before Islam, the Arabs of Madinah lived beside Jewish tribes. A woman whose babies kept dying in infancy would sometimes make a vow: if this one lives, I will raise him as a Jew. So when Islam came, some families of the Ansar , the Helpers, as the Muslims of Madinah were called, had sons growing up among the Jewish tribe of Banu al-Nadir.
Then Banu al-Nadir were made to leave Madinah. The parents said: we will not leave our children. In al-Wahidi's second version they bring it to the Prophet ﷺ : "O Messenger of Allah! Our children!" The ayah was the reply.
Al-Wahidi adds how it ended, in the words of Sa'id ibn Jubayr, who passed the report on from Ibn 'Abbas: "Those who wished to leave with the Jews did leave, and those who wished to embrace Islam embraced Islam."
It is not the only report. Al-Wahidi also passes on two others, with no grading. Mujahid said the ayah was about a man of the Ansar who was pressing a boy he owned, named Subayh, to become Muslim. Al-Suddi said it was about a man called Abu'l-Husayn, whose two sons became Christian through oil traders visiting from Syria and left with them. In all three the person being told "no" is a Muslim with power over someone in his own household. Ibn Kathir gives only the Ansar report, and adds that the meaning of the ayah is general.
Researched with AI help, from: al-Wahidi, Asbab al-Nuzul (two chains from Ibn 'Abbas; Sa'id ibn Jubayr; Mujahid; al-Suddi); Tafsir Ibn Kathir (from Ibn Jarir al-Tabari; also in Abu Dawud and al-Nasa'i); Tafsir al-Jalalayn
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 2:256
Then what about the ayat on fighting? Ma'ariful Qur'an raises the obvious objection itself. The same surah tells Muslims to fight. Does that not contradict "no compulsion"?
Its answer, which it credits to al-Qurtubi and to Tafsir Mazhari, is that fighting was never commanded in order to make people believe. Its stated purpose was to end oppression and disorder. Mufti Shafi offers the law of jizyah as evidence: under Muslim rule, non-Muslims who paid this tax kept their religion, and their lives, property and honour were protected. If the aim had been conversion, he argues, no such arrangement would exist. He adds that women, children, the old and the disabled were not to be killed even in battle.
He then tells a story of 'Umar, the second caliph . 'Umar invited an old Christian woman to Islam. She answered that she was an old woman close to death. He did not press her. He recited this ayah.
Ibn Kathir deals with a different difficulty: a hadith in Ahmad's collection, which he calls authentic, where the Prophet ﷺ says to a man "Embrace Islam", the man says "I dislike it", and the Prophet ﷺ replies "Even if you dislike it." Ibn Kathir says this is not compulsion. The man was invited and urged, not forced.
These are the answers in the commentaries read for this lesson. They are those authors' arguments, set out here as they make them.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing al-Qurtubi and Tafsir Mazhari; Tafsir Ibn Kathir (the hadith of Anas in the Musnad of Ahmad)
A closer look: The image, ayah 2:256
The handhold, and a man who dreamed of it The ayah's closing picture is the 'urwah: a handle, or a loop to grip. Ma'ariful Qur'an, quoting the commentator Thanawi, pictures the loop at the end of a strong rope: hold it and you do not fall, and the rope will never be what fails. If someone lets go, he says, that is another matter. Al-Jalalayn calls it "the tight knot".
What is the handhold? Ibn Kathir gives two early answers. Mujahid said it is faith. Al-Suddi said it is Islam.
Then Ibn Kathir tells a story, from Ahmad's collection and also in al-Bukhari and Muslim. A man named Qays ibn 'Abbad was in the mosque when a humble-looking man came in and prayed briefly. People whispered: that is a man of Paradise. Qays followed him home and asked why.
The man said nobody should claim what they do not know. Then he explained. In the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime he had a dream: a wide green garden, an iron pole rising from it to the sky, and a handle at the very top. He was told to climb and said he could not. A helper lifted him, and he climbed until he gripped the handle. He woke, he said, with the handle in his hand. The Prophet ﷺ told him the garden was Islam, the pole its pillar, and the handle the firmest handhold: "You shall remain Muslim until you die."
The man was 'Abdullah ibn Salam. Ibn Kathir names him and says no more about him.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Mujahid, al-Suddi, and the report of Qays ibn 'Abbad from the Musnad of Ahmad and the two Sahihs); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), quoting Thanawi's Bayan al-Qur'an; Tafsir al-Jalalayn
A closer look: How translators put it, ayah 2:256
Taghut: a word both translators leave in Arabic The ayah says the handhold belongs to whoever rejects taghut and believes in Allah. The two translations below both keep the Arabic word and explain it in a footnote, and one also adds "false gods" in brackets. A word translators will not translate is usually worth a second look.
Ibn Kathir passes on the answer of 'Umar: taghut means Shaytan. Ibn Kathir calls that very sound, because it takes in everything Shaytan led people to before Islam: worshipping idols, taking disputes to them, calling on them for victory. Al-Jalalayn says Satan or idols, and notes that the word works as both singular and plural.
The translators' own footnotes go wider. One lists idols, heavenly bodies, spirits and human beings. The other counts anything worshipped, followed or obeyed in place of Allah, and adds that angels, prophets and righteous people are not taghut, even though worshipping them would be shirk , setting up partners beside Allah.
Al-Tustari turns the word inward. Commenting on the next ayah, where taghut appears again, he says the head of all devils is a person's own self when it pushes towards wrong, since Shaytan can only get at a person through what that person already wants.
A second, smaller difference is in the first line. One translation adds "acceptance of" in brackets: no compulsion in acceptance of the religion. Al-Jalalayn reads it the same way: no compulsion "in entering into" religion.
Saheeh International
256 There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become distinct from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in ṭāghūt and believes in Allāh has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allāh is Hearing and Knowing.
Rowwad Translation Center
256 There is no compulsion in religion; the right guidance has become distinct from error. Whoever rejects Tāghoot[i.e., false gods] and believes in Allah has indeed grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (the saying of 'Umar, from Abu al-Qasim al-Baghawi); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir al-Tustari (on 2:257); Saheeh International and Rowwad translations, with their footnotes
Faith forced is not faith. The ayah after the greatest ayah leaves the choice open.