whether it belongs to a man of ʿĀmir or to a Qurayshite idolater—without saying: “Muhammad has sent me to give you news that will distress you: you shall be dragged upon your face and your belly in the Fire.”

Laqit said: I asked, “Messenger of Allah, why has that been done to them? They practised no work but that one, and they thought they were doing good.” He replied, “That is because Allah would send, at the end of every span of seven nations”—meaning a prophet—“so whoever disobeyed his prophet was among the misguided, and whoever obeyed his prophet was among the rightly guided.”

Abu Dawud likewise narrated it in the recension of Abu Saʿid ibn al-Aʿrabi, from Abu Dawud, from al-Hasan ibn ʿAli, from Ibrahim ibn Hamzah, with this wording. Our shaykh said: “It is perhaps one of Ibn al-Aʿrabi’s additions.” (1)

Al-Walid ibn Muslim—who compiled in one volume assorted hadiths and reports corroborating the hadith of the Trumpet—said: Saʿid ibn Bashir told us, from Qatadah, concerning Allah’s words, “Listen for the Day when the Caller will call from a place nearby” (4) [Qaf]. He said: “It is an angel standing upon the Rock of Jerusalem who will proclaim: ‘O decayed bones and severed limbs, Allah commands you to assemble for the Final Judgment!’”

By the same chain Qatadah said: “The punishment of the grave is lifted from its inhabitants only during the interval between the Blast of Obliteration and the Blast of Resurrection. Hence, when the unbeliever is raised he cries, ‘Woe to us! Who has raised us from our resting-place?’—meaning that interval—whereupon the believer says, ‘This is what the All-Merciful promised, and the messengers spoke the truth’ (52) [Ya-Sin].” (2)

Abu Bakr ibn Abi al-Dunya said: ʿAli ibn al-Husayn ibn Abi Maryam related to me, from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn; he said: Ṣadaqah ibn Bakr al-Saʿdi related to me; he said: Maʿdi ibn Sulayman related:

Abu Muḥallim (3) al-Jasri—his companions would gather around him, for he was a wise man—whenever he recited the verse, “And the Trumpet will be blown, and suddenly they will rush from their graves to their Lord. They will say, ‘Woe to us! Who has raised us from our resting-place?’ ‘This is what the All-Merciful promised, and the messengers spoke the truth’” (51-52) [Ya-Sin], he would weep and then say:

“Indeed, on the Day of Resurrection there are states whose very description overwhelms the mind with dread. By Allah, if people were truly in a sleep, as their words outwardly suggest, they would not have cried ‘Woe’ at the very first instant of their awakening, nor would they have been stopped thereafter at the Station of Presentation and Questioning unless they had already beheld a momentous peril and the terrors of the Resurrection had been confirmed upon them. And, by Allah, if during their long stay in al-Barzakh they had been suffering and punished in their graves, they would not have cried ‘Woe’ when that ceased for them unless they had been transferred to a calamity even greater. Were the matter otherwise, they would not have belittled what they had been in and called it ‘sleep’ in comparison….”