“…the Garden.’(1) This ḥadīth will be discussed in detail below.
Muslim likewise relates it in his Ṣaḥīḥ,(2) through Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī—whose name is Saʿd ibn Ṭāriq—from Abū Ḥāzim Salamah ibn Dīnār, from Abū Hurayrah; and through Abū Mālik, from Ribʿī, from Ḥudhayfah. They both reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
“Allah will gather all people. When Paradise is brought near to the believers, they will rise and go to Adam and say, ‘O our father! Ask that the gate of Paradise be opened for us.’ He will reply, ‘Nothing expelled you from Paradise except your father’s sin….’” He then narrated the remainder of the ḥadīth at length.
This provides clear and weighty evidence that the garden in question is the Garden of Refuge (Jannat al-Maʾwā), though the issue is still open to further examination.
Others, however, have said that the garden in which Adam was placed was not the Garden of Eternal Abode, for he was commanded therein not to eat from a certain tree, he slept in it, he was expelled from it, and Iblīs was able to enter it—all of which, they argue, is incompatible with its being the Garden of Refuge. This view is attributed to Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, Wahb ibn Munabbih, and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah; it was also chosen by Ibn Qutaybah in al-Maʿārif,(3) by the judge Mundhir ibn Saʿīd al-Balūṭī in his Tafsīr—who even devoted a separate treatise to the subject—and it is reported as well from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions, may Allah have mercy on them.(4)
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Rāzī, the preacher of Rayy, transmitted the same view in his Tafsīr(5) on the authority of Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī and Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī. Al-Qurṭubī also cited it in his Tafsīr(6) from the Muʿtazilites and the Qadarites, and it is, in fact, the explicit wording of the Torah held by the People of the Book.
The divergence on this matter is likewise recorded by Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm in al-Milal wa’l-Niḥal,(7) Abū Muḥammad Ibn ʿAṭiyyah in his Tafsīr,(8) and Abū ʿĪsā al-Rummānī in his Tafsīr. Abū al-Qāsim al-Rāghib and the judge al-Māwardī also mention the dispute in their Tafsīrs, stating: “There is a difference of opinion regarding the garden in which Adam and Eve were settled, and two views have been advanced:
- that it was the Garden of Eternal Abode;(9)
- that it was a garden Allah prepared for them as a place of trial, not the Garden of Eternity which He has appointed as the abode of recompense.”