Verse of the Throne

Ayatul Kursi is one of those verses that most of us have known since childhood. We recite it without thinking sometimes, which is both beautiful and something I wanted to push back against with this painting. I wanted to make you look at it again. Really look.

The verse sits at the centre of the canvas in abstract calligraphy, and surrounding it, written thousands of times in my own hand, is the Shahadah. La Ilaha Ilallah. The repetition was intentional. Writing it that many times is its own form of dhikr. By the time I finished, the act of making the painting had become inseparable from the meaning of what I was writing.

Ayatul Kursi attests to something that no other verse quite captures in the same way. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth. He never sleeps. He never tires. Everything is held within His knowledge. I wanted this painting to carry that weight into the room it lives in, quietly, without demanding anything