1350 – Juwayriyah bint al-Ḥārith (may Allah be pleased with her) reported: The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace be upon him) said to me, “Since leaving you I have uttered four words; if they were weighed against everything you have recited from this morning, they would outweigh them: subḥānallāhi wa bi-ḥamdih ʿadada khalqih, wa riḍā nafsih, wa zinata ʿarshih, wa midāda kalimātih (‘Glory be to Allah and praise is His: by the number of His creatures, by His own good pleasure, equal to the weight of His Throne, and equal to the ink needed to record His words’).” Reported by Muslim (1).
Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• baʿdiki (“after you”): the kāf is in the genitive because the address is to Juwayriyah bint al-Ḥārith, Mother of the Believers; it means “after I left you.”
• law wuzinat (“if they were weighed”): passive, feminine form.
• lawzanathunna (“they would outweigh them”): active form; that is, they would be heavier in the balance.
Points derived from the ḥadith
- The fuller narration relates that the Prophet ﷺ left the home of his wife Juwayriyah bint al-Ḥārith after praying the dawn prayer while she was seated in her house-mosque. He returned later in the forenoon and found her still sitting there. He asked, “Have you remained as I left you?” She replied, “Yes.” He then said, “Since leaving you I have said four phrases three times; if they were weighed against all that you have said, they would outweigh them.”
- His words “they would outweigh them” mean they would equal and surpass them in weight; these four phrases are greater and weightier because their wording covers an immensely large number of glorifications and encompasses countless acts of remembrance.
- ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām commented on the one who uses wording in glorification that conveys so vast a number—