24 – ʿAtiyyah narrated from Abū Saʿīd, from the Prophet ﷺ regarding the verse, “It may be that your Lord will raise you to a Praiseworthy Station” (17:79). He said, “The al-maqām al-maḥmūd (Praiseworthy Station) is the intercession. Allah, exalted is He, will punish a group of the people of faith for their sins; then He will bring them out through the intercession of Muhammad ﷺ. They will be taken to a river called al-Ḥayawān (Life), where they will bathe, after which they will enter Paradise. There they will be known in Paradise as ‘the Hell-folk.’ They will then implore Allah, exalted is He, and He will remove that name from them.

In another wording he said, “Allah will bring out from the Fire a people of faith—people who faced the qiblah—through the intercession of Muhammad ﷺ, and that is the al-maqām al-maḥmūd. They will be brought to a river called al-Ḥayawān; they will be cast into it and will sprout again just as young shoots spring up after a flood. When they emerge, they will enter Paradise, where they will be called ‘the Hell-folk.’ They will then ask Allah, exalted is He, to remove that name from them, and He will do so.”

He added at the end: “They will then be called ‘the freed ones of Allah.’” Abū Ḥanīfah likewise transmitted this hadith from Abū Shaddād ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Saʿīd.