then Allah dispatches him to the Fire.’
He added: ‘As the man is being led away, a herald from the All-Merciful’s presence calls out, “Do not be hasty! Do not be hasty! Do not be hasty! Something still remains for him.” A card is brought on which is written: lā ilāha illā Allāh (there is no god but Allah). It is placed with the man in one pan, whereupon the scale tips in his favour.’
This version of the report is unusual (1), but it yields an important point: the doer himself is weighed together with his deed.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā said:
Ahmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Barāʾ al-Muqriʾ narrated to us; Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd narrated to us, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ziyād, from Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr—raising it to the Prophet—who said:

‘A man will be brought to the Scale on the Day of Resurrection. Ninety-nine scrolls will be produced for him, each scroll stretching as far as the eye can see, containing his sins and offenses. They will be placed in one pan. Then a slip of paper the size of a fingertip will be brought out, bearing the testimony that lā ilāha illā Allāh and that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger. It will be placed in the other pan and it will outweigh his sins.’

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā also said:
Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām narrated to us; Ḥajjāj narrated to us, from Fiṭr ibn Khalīfah, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sābiṭ, who said:

When death approached Abū Bakr, he sent for ʿUmar and said:
‘Those whose scales are heavy on the Day of Resurrection are only those whose scales were made heavy by their adherence to the truth in this world and the burden it laid upon them. It is only right that a scale in which truth is placed tomorrow should be heavy. Those whose scales are light on the Day of Resurrection are only those whose scales were light because they followed falsehood in this world and found it easy—and it is only right that a scale in which falsehood is placed tomorrow should be light.’

Ahmad narrated—through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from Ibn Abī Mulaykah, from Yaʿlā ibn Mamlak, from Umm al-Dardāʾ, from Abū al-Dardāʾ—that the Prophet ﷺ said:
‘The heaviest thing to be placed in the Scale is good character.’ (2)

Reports have also come indicating that the very deeds are weighed. In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, through Abū Salām from Abū Mālik al-Ashʿarī, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
‘Purification is half of faith; “al-ḥamdu lillāh” fills the Scale; and “subḥānallāh wa-l-ḥamdu lillāh” fill—or fill up—what is between the heavens and the earth. Prayer is light, charity is proof, patience is illumination, and the Quran is an argument either for you or against you. All people set out at dawn and sell their souls, either freeing them or destroying them.’ (3)

His statement, ‘and al-ḥamdu lillāh fills the Scale,’ shows that the deed itself is weighed. This can occur in one of two ways: either the deed itself—though an incorporeal quality residing in its doer—is transformed by Allah on the Day of Resurrection into a tangible entity and is placed