Shaykh Abu Ja’farsaid that our view of the ‘Throne’ was that it was another name for the collection of all things (spiritual or material) in the Universe, as created by God. Again, God’s Knowledge was also linked with the ‘Throne’.

While explaining the Qur’anic text:

الرَّحْمَٰنُ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ اسْتَوَىٰ

“The Beneficent One, Who is established on the Throne” (20:5).

Imam Ja’far As-Sadiq was asked to elucidate about this term.

He replied, “God had proportionately the same distance from His entire creation. One could not say that He is nearer to the one and further away from the other. This ‘Throne’ was lifted up by eight Angels”

These might be eight different forces that were required to balance the Throne. Each of the Angel had eight eyes and each eye was so big that it could overlap over the entire world. One of these Angels had a human form which asked for sustenance for the descendants of Adam, from God. Another one was for the animal kingdom. The third angel asked for sustenance for the beasts and the next one sought sustenance for the birds. These Angels could assume the form of the creatures they were asking the sustenance for. At this moment these were the Angels upon whom the ‘Throne’ rested, but they would become eight on the Day of Judgement.

However, the term Arsh, which meant - Knowledge – was balanced by eight persons. Four of these persons were from the early humans and the remaining four were from the later generations. The four from the former generations were - Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. The remaining four were - Muhammad al-Mustafa (S), Ali Ibn Abi Talib (‘a), Imam Al-Hasan (‘a) and Imam Husayn (‘a). This was the summary of the news that had been received from the Imams regarding the Throne and its bearers.

The reason why these distinguished people depicted Throne as the body of Knowledge of God was due to the fact that before the descent of Prophet Muhammad (S) all the Messengers had received their share of knowledge through it. The other Prophets such as Noah, Ibraham, Moses and Jesus benefitted from it. Similarly, the Knowledge of God had passed through Prophet Muhammad (S), Imam Ali (‘a), Imam Hasan (‘a) and Imam Husayn (‘a) to the reach the rest of the Imams.