345 — Al-Firyābī informed us, saying: Abū Marwān Hishām ibn Khālid al-Azraq al-Dimashqī narrated to us, saying: Al-Hasan ibn Yahyā al-Khushanī narrated to us, from al-Husayn Abū Abd Allah, the client of Banū Umayya, from Abū Sālih, from Abū Hurayra, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say:

“Indeed, the first thing Allah created was the Pen. He then created Nūn, which is the inkwell, and said, ‘Write.’ The Pen asked, ‘What shall I write?’ He said, ‘Write all that will happen and all that is to come—whether a deed, a trace, a provision, or an appointed lifespan.’ So it wrote all that would happen and all that was to come until the Day of Resurrection. This is what He—Mighty and Majestic is He—said: ‘Nūn. By the Pen and what they inscribe’ [al-Qalam: 1]. He then sealed the Pen, so it did not speak, nor will it speak until the Day of Resurrection.”