his own Pool, staff in hand, summoning those members of his community whom he recognizes. They will vie with one another, each prophet boasting about who has the larger following, and—by Him in Whose hand is my soul—I hope to have the greatest following of them all… He then quoted the rest of the ḥadīth.

This report is mursal from al-Ḥasan; it is ḥasan, and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān and others deemed it sound. Our teacher, the ḥadīth master al-Mizzī, likewise issued the verdict that the ḥadīth is authentic on the strength of these various chains.

[Section]
If someone were to ask, “Is the Pool situated before the crossing of the ṣirāṭ (the Bridge) or after it?” the answer is that the outward sense of the preceding aḥādīth indicates that it is before the Bridge, because certain people will be driven away from it with the words: “They kept turning back on their heels from the moment you left them.” If those people are disbelievers, a disbeliever never crosses the Bridge; he is hurled head-first into the Fire before he reaches it.

Others have said that the Bridge is the road and passageway leading to Paradise, erected for the believers as well as for the sinful, the transgressors, and the oppressors. Hooks will seize them: some will be scratched yet delivered, while others will be caught by a hook and will fall headlong into the Fire. If the ones described as having “turned back” are in fact disobedient Muslims, it is unlikely that they would be barred from the Pool—especially since the marks of wuḍūʾ (ablution) will be visible upon them.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “I shall recognize you by the radiance of your faces and limbs produced by ablution.” Moreover, whoever has crossed the Bridge is necessarily safe and sound; such a person would not be kept from the Pool. The more probable view, and Allah knows best, is therefore that the Pool is before the Bridge.

As for the ḥadīth reported by Imām Aḥmad—“Yūnus narrated to us; Ḥarb ibn Maymūn narrated to us, from al-Naḍr ibn Anas, from Anas”—Anas said:
“I asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to intercede for me on the Day of Resurrection. He replied, ‘I shall do so.’ I asked, ‘O Prophet of Allah, where should I look for you on the Day of Resurrection?’ He said, ‘Look for me first at the Bridge.’ I said, ‘And if I do not meet you at the Bridge?’ He answered, ‘Then find me at the Balance.’ I asked, ‘And if I do not meet you at the Balance?’ He said, ‘Then I am at the Pool. I shall not miss any of these three stations on the Day of Resurrection.’ ”

Al-Tirmidhī also narrated this ḥadīth through Badal ibn al-Muḥabbar, and Ibn Mājah, in his Tafsīr, through ʿAbd al-Ṣamad—both of them from Ḥarb ibn Maymūn Abū al-Khaṭṭāb al-Anṣārī al-Baṣrī, a transmitter whose reports appear in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī and ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Fallas considered him reliable, and they distinguished between him and Ḥarb ibn Maymūn Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAbdī al-Baṣrī, the narrator of al-Aghmiyah, whom they regarded as weak. Al-Bukhārī, however, treated the two as a single person.

He further quoted Sulaimān ibn Ḥarb as saying, “This man was the most mendacious of people,” and al-Dāraqutnī faulted al-Bukhārī and Muslim for merging the two narrators into one.

Our teacher, the ḥadīth master al-Mizzī, remarked: “Several scholars have conflated them, and several others have kept them distinct; the correct view, if Allah wills, is that they are two separate individuals.”

I add: I have examined this issue in detail in my work al-Takmīl, and that should suffice.