Ayatul Kursi is the 255th Ayah in Surah Al-Baqarah. It is composed of 9 sentences or parts.

1. Allah! There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining.
2. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him.
3. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth.
4. Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission?
5. He ˹fully˺ knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them,
6. but no one can grasp any of His knowledge – except what He wills ˹to reveal˺.
7. His Kursi (chair or footstool) encompasses the heavens and the earth,
8. and the preservation of both does not tire Him.
9. and He is the Most High, the Greatest.

Now check this out:

1. Allah! There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him, the Ever-Living, All-Sustaining.	9. And He is the Most High, the Greatest.
2. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him.	8. and the preservation of both does not tire Him.
3. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth.	7. His Kursi encompasses the heavens and the earth,
4. Who could possibly intercede with Him without His permission?	6. but no one can grasp any of His knowledge – except what He wills ˹to reveal˺.

5. He ˹fully˺ knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them

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Can you fathom what you just saw? Can we, in an unbiased way, just appreciate the symmetry here?

The first and last sentences both have something in common – each has 2 names of Allah.

In the second row, both are about the subject of watching over something and not getting tired or sleepy over it.

In the third row, both are about the heavens and the earth. However, what’s beautiful to add is that the 3rd part is talking about ownership and the 7th is talking about the kingdom. Both are about control, but ownership is about property and kingdom is about people, so both aspects of power are covered!

In the fourth row, both parts are statements about Allah and the only exception to each of them.

Then finally the kicker, which is the 5th and middle sentence – He ˹fully˺ knows what is ahead of them and what is behind them. It is as if God is saying He knows what are the sentences before and what are the sentences after. How can someone think of speaking or writing something like that?

• This was beautifully explained by Nouman Ali Khan in this video –

God says in the Qur’an the following:

Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam… [Qur’an 3:19]

And whoever desires other than Islam as religion – never will it be accepted from him, and he, in the Hereafter, will be among the losers. [Qur’an 3:85]

In this post-modern world, a prevalent belief is that everything is true in its own way and that you can’t disprove anything. You will hear people say, “Preach your truth,” even if it goes against logic, science, and common sense. It sounds nice. After all, there’s so many beliefs, how can we know which is the truth? And there’s so much violence in the world. Wouldn’t it be better to avoid arguments and just say everyone’s truth is fine? In fact, one theory for the rise of postmodernism is that due to the dark side of modern ideologies such as neo-atheism, people realized that just hating on religion won’t solve anything. 

However, there are a lot of harm and negatives that come with the “everything is true” ideology as well. Let’s take religion as an example. People will say “Every religion is true!” or “Every religion is from God.” When one has that ideology, that’s making A LOT of assumptions about God, the biggest of which is that God sent all those religions and that He’s fine with you practicing any of them.

However, if one takes a step back and simply looks at this logically, one will realize that this does not make any sense. Let’s take Islam and Christianity, for example. The first says the verses above, while the latter says that the way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. God sent religions that contradict each other? Take a monotheistic religion and a polytheistic one. How can there be harmony in those? Will God send a religion that says to worship other imaginary beings?

And let’s think about the concept of Hellfire. Many religions say to follow it or you will go to Hellfire. It sounds harsh, but in fact, it makes complete sense!

Why? Because why else should you follow the religion? Why would, for example, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) preach for over 20 years, face persecution, lose his followers and family members, leave his home land, starve, and face death multiple times, only to say, “Hey guys, you don’t need to really follow me. God is fine with all religions”?

Thus, isn’t it only logical that if a person believes in God, he also believes that He sent down one true religion?