water and will sprinkle it over your faces. By the life of your Lord, not a single drop will miss the face of any one of you. As for the Muslim, it will leave on his face a mark as bright as a fine white mantle; as for the unbeliever, it will strike his face as though with pitch-black molten rock.

After that, your Prophet will move on and the righteous will follow close behind him. You will then pass over a bridge laid across the Fire; one of you will tread upon the burning coals and cry, “Ah, it burns!” whereupon your Lord—exalted is He—will say, “Now is its appointed time.” You will next come to the Messenger’s Basin, parched—by Allah—yet able to drink your fill from waters the like of which I have never seen. By the life of your Lord, none of you will stretch out his hand but that a cup will be placed in it, cleansing him of excrement, urine, and every impurity. The sun and the moon will be held back, so you will see neither of them.

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, by what light shall we see?” He replied, “With the very sight you possess at this moment. That will be when the sun rises on a day in which the whole earth is radiant and the mountains stand exposed before it.”

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, how shall we be repaid for our misdeeds and our good deeds?” He said, “A good deed is rewarded tenfold, while a bad deed counts only as one—unless He pardons.”

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, is it Paradise or the Fire?” He said, “By the life of your Lord, Hell has seven gates; between no two of them is less than a seventy-year journey for a mounted rider. [And Paradise has eight gates, between no two of which is less than a seventy-year journey for a mounted rider.]”

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, what shall we behold in Paradise?” He said, “Rivers of clarified honey; rivers of wine that cause neither headache nor regret; rivers of milk whose taste never changes; and water that never becomes stagnant; fruits—by the life of your Lord, fruits you know and far better besides—and spouses who have been purified.”

I said, “O Messenger of Allah, will we have wives there—will any of them be righteous?” He said, “The righteous women are for the righteous men; you will take delight in them just as you delighted in your wives in this world, and they will delight [in you]…"