to each of them, one will say, “By Allah, nothing in Paradise is more beautiful than you, and nothing in Paradise is dearer to me than you.”

He said: “When the people of the Fire are hurled into it—and into it will plunge great multitudes of your Lord’s creation, ruined by their own deeds—some of them will be engulfed by the Fire only up to their feet and no higher; some up to their hips; and some until every part of their bodies is consumed except their faces, for Allah has forbidden the Fire to touch their faces.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “I will then plead, ‘My Lord, grant me leave to intercede for those of my community who have fallen into the Fire.’

“Allah—exalted is He—will say, ‘Bring out those you recognize.’ They will be brought out until none of them remains.

“Then Allah will permit intercession so that no prophet or martyr will be left without having been allowed to intercede. Allah—exalted is He—will say, ‘Bring out everyone in whose heart you find faith equal to the weight of a dinar.’ They will be brought out until not one remains.

“Next, whoever Allah wills will intercede, and it will be said, ‘Bring out whoever you find in whose heart there is faith of two-thirds of a dinar, half a dinar, a third of a dinar, a quarter of a dinar,’ then, ‘one-sixth of a dinar,’ then, ‘a qirāt,’ and finally, ‘a grain of mustard-seed.’ They will be brought out until none of them remains—until no one at all is left in the Fire who ever performed any act of goodness for Allah, and until every person entitled to intercession has received it. Even Iblīs will crane his neck, hoping that mercy might reach him because of what he sees of Allah’s mercy.

“Then Allah—exalted is He—will say, ‘Now I alone remain, and I am the Most Merciful of those who show mercy.’ He will place His Hand into Hell and will bring out of it a number none but He can count, looking like charred logs. Allah will scatter them upon a river called the River of Life, and they will sprout like a seed(1) in the silt(2) carried by a flood: the side exposed to the sun becomes lush green, while the side in the shade turns pale yellow. They will grow like the ṭarāthīth weed until they become like lumps of darmak(3).

“Written on their necks will be the words: ‘The Jahannamites—freed by the All-Merciful.’ The people of Paradise will recognize them by that inscription. They never performed any good deed at all, yet they will remain in Paradise.”

His narration up to this point appeared in the original recension of Abū Bakr ibn al-Muqri from Abū Yaʿlā—may Allah Most High have mercy on him. This is a well-known hadith, recorded by a number of leading scholars in their works: Ibn Jarīr in his Tafsīr, al-Ṭabarānī in al-Ṭiwālāt and elsewhere, al-Bayhaqī in the book al-Baʿth wa-l-Nushūr, and the ḥāfiẓ Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī in al-Ṭiwālāt as well, through multiple chains from Ismāʿīl ibn Rāfiʿ, the storyteller of the people of Madinah. Because of him the report has been criticized, and in some versions there are anomalies and discrepancies. I have outlined its chains in a separate monograph.

I say: Ismāʿīl ibn Rāfiʿ al-Madanī is not among the fabricators; rather, it seems he gathered this narration from various routes and locales and wove it into a single account, which he used to relate to the people of Madinah. Many notables of his day were present at his storytelling, and a number of eminent scholars transmitted it from him, such as Abū ʿĀṣim al-Nabīl, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, and Makkī b