of this ummah and of their deliverance from the Fire. It seems that the aim of the early scholars in limiting themselves to this portion of the report was to rebut the Khārijites and the Mu‘tazilah who followed them—those who deny that anyone will ever be brought out of the Fire once he has entered it. Therefore they would cite precisely this segment of the ḥadīth, for it contains an explicit text refuting the innovation they espoused in opposition to the authentic aḥādīth.
A clear statement to that effect appears in the ḥadīth of the Horn, already mentioned: the people go to Adam, then to Noah, then to Abraham, then to Moses, then to Jesus; finally they come to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He goes and prostrates to Allah beneath the Throne, in a place called al-Faḥṣ. Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will say, “What is your concern?” I will say, “My Lord, You promised me the intercession; so grant me intercession on behalf of Your creation, and judge between them.” He will say, “I have granted you intercession; I Myself am coming to judge between you.” He said: “Then I return and stand with the people…”—until he said: “Then Allah will set down His Chair wherever He wills upon His earth…” and he related the remainder of the ḥadīth as cited above.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq said: Maʿmar informed us, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “When the Day of Resurrection comes, Allah will stretch out the earth like tanned leather so that no human being will have more than the space his two feet occupy.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “I will be the first to be summoned, while Gabriel stands to the right of the All-Merciful (Mighty and Majestic)—by Allah, he had never seen Him before that. I will say, ‘My Lord, he informed me that You sent him to me.’ Allah will say, ‘He has spoken the truth.’ Then I will intercede, saying, ‘My Lord, Your servants worshipped You at the ends of the earth.’” He said, “That is the Praiseworthy Station.” This chain is mursal from this route. (1)
In my view, the meaning of his words, “Your servants worshipped You at the ends of the earth,” is: standing at the extremities of the earth—that is, the people will all be gathered on a single plain, believers and disbelievers alike. He therefore intercedes for them with Allah, asking Him to come and pronounce judgment between His servants and to separate the believer from the disbeliever—both in the place of standing and in their ultimate destiny, immediate and eventual.
For this reason Ibn Jarīr said: Most of the exegetes have said concerning the Almighty’s words, “Perhaps your Lord will raise you to a Praiseworthy Station” (al-Isrāʾ 17:79), that it is the station at which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ will stand on the Day of Resurrection to intercede for the people, so that their Lord may relieve them of the magnitude of what they are facing from the terrors of that Day.
Al-Bukhārī said: Ismāʿīl ibn Abān narrated to us; Abū al-Aḥwaṣ narrated to us, from Ādam ibn ʿAlī, who said: I heard Ibn ʿUmar say, “On the Day of Resurrection people will become kneeling masses (2); each nation will follow its prophet, saying, ‘O so-and-so, intercede; O so-and-so, intercede,’ until the intercession reaches the Prophet ﷺ. That is the Day on which Allah will raise him to the Praiseworthy Station.” He added: Hamzah ibn ʿAbd Allah also narrated it from his father, from the Prophet ﷺ. He has supplied the full isnād of what he abbreviates here in another place in the Ṣaḥīḥ.