reaches as far as it reaches, yet because of it he is cast into the Fire for seventy autumns.(1)
As for major hypocrisy, even though a man may be fully aware that he is Muslim, he must still seek refuge with Allah from hypocrisy and from shirk (associating partners with Him), for he does not know how his life will conclude. A person may wake up a believer and retire at night an unbeliever. We seek refuge in Allah’s Noble Countenance from that.
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī informed us; Jaʿfar al-Hamdānī informed us; Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī informed us; Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Muqriʾ informed us; Abū al-Qāsim ibn Bishrān narrated to us; Abū Sahl ibn Ziyād informed us; ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn al-Haytham narrated to us; Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr narrated to us, from Rāshid ibn Saʿd, who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ once said, while a group of Quraysh were sitting with him: “Indeed, you will be the custodians of this matter after me. So let me not find that you have burdened my community after I am gone. O Allah, whoever makes things hard for my community, make things hard for him.”(2)
A sound mursal report.
161 – ʿAwf ibn Abī Jamīlah Abū Sahl al-Aʿrabī * (ʿ)
The Imām, the ḥāfiẓ, Abū Sahl al-Aʿrabī, of Basra—despite the epithet, he was not a Bedouin—
(1) Al-Bukhari, no. 6477, “al-Riqaq”, chapter “Guarding the Tongue”, reports on the authority of Abu Hurayra, in a marfuʿ form: “A servant may utter a word that earns Allah’s pleasure, without paying it any attention, and Allah raises him by it several degrees; and a servant may utter a word that incurs Allah’s anger, without paying it any attention, and because of it he plummets into Hell.”
It is also transmitted by al-Tirmidhi, no. 2314, and Ibn Majah, no. 3970, with the wording: “A man may say a word he thinks harmless, yet because of it he falls seventy autumns into the Fire.”
Musnad Ahmad, 2:236 and 355, records it with a strong chain: Ibn Ishaq explicitly stated that he heard the hadith; al-Tirmidhi graded it hasan and al-Hakim declared it sahih.
Ahmad likewise reports it, 2:355 and 533, through another isnad with the wording: “A man may utter a word, never imagining it will have the effect it has, yet because of it he falls seventy autumns into the Fire.” All its narrators are trustworthy.
(2) Muslim, Sahih, no. 1828, cites the report of ʿAisha: “O Allah, whoever takes charge of any matter concerning my community and deals harshly with them, deal harshly with him; and whoever takes charge of any matter concerning my community and treats them gently, treat him gently.”
(*) Khalifa ibn Khayyat, Tarikh, p. 226; idem, Tabaqat, p. 219; al-Bukhari, Tarikh Kabir, 7:58; idem, Tarikh Saghir.