179 — Al-Firyābī informed us, saying: Abū Marwān Hishām ibn Khālid al-Dimashqī—meaning al-Azraq—narrated to us, saying: Al-Hasan ibn Yahyā al-Khushanī narrated to us, from Abū Abd Allah, the freedman of the Umayyads, from Abū Sālih, from Abū Hurayra, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: “The first thing Allah created was the Pen. Then, after it, He created the Nūn, which is the inkwell. He then said, ‘Write.’ It asked, ‘What shall I write?’ He said, ‘Write all that will occur and come into being—every deed, trace, and provision.’ Thus, it wrote everything that would occur and come into being until the Day of Resurrection. This is His saying, Glorified and Exalted is He: ‘Nūn. By the Pen and what they inscribe’ [al-Qalam: 1]. He then sealed the Pen, so it spoke no more and will not speak until the Day of Resurrection.”