zaqqūm were to be dropped into the oceans of this world, it would ruin the people’s means of living; so what, then, of the one for whom it will be food?”
Al-Tirmidhī related this through Maḥmūd ibn Ghaylān, from Abū Dāwūd, and declared it “sound and authentic.” Al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah also transmitted it, by way of Shuʿbah, with the same wording ⦗1⦘.
Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī said: Zuhayr narrated to us, al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Ashyab narrated to us, Ibn Lahiʿah narrated to us, Darrāj Abū al-Samḥ narrated to us, that Abū al-Haytham narrated to him, from Abū Saʿīd, from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said:
“If a single bucket of ghassāq were poured into the world, it would make the inhabitants of the earth reek.”
Al-Tirmidhī likewise recorded it through the transmission of Darrāj ⦗2⦘.
Kaʿb al-Aḥbār said: On the Day of Resurrection Allah will look at His servant while angry with him and will say, “Seize him!” A hundred thousand angels—or even more—will seize him, gathering his forelock and his feet out of anger for Allah’s anger. They will drag him on his face toward the Fire, and the Fire will be seventy times more enraged with him than they are. He will beg for a drink of water, so he will be given a draught that causes his flesh and sinews to slough off, after which he will be hurled headlong into the Fire—woe to him from the Fire!
He also said: Do you know what ghassāq is? They replied, “No.” He said: It is a spring in Jahannam into which flows the venom of every venomous creature—snake, scorpion, and the like. It stagnates there, and a human being will be brought and plunged into it once; he will emerge with the skin peeled from his bones, his skin and flesh hung from his ankles, so that he drags his flesh and skin behind him just as a man drags his garment.
[Mention of locations in Hell whose names occur in ḥadiths, and an explanation of what is authentic and what is weak]
Allah, the Exalted, says: “But as for the one whose scales are light (8), his refuge will be Hawiyah (9).” (Q 101:8-9)
It has been said that “his mother (umm) is Hawiyah” means his head plunges head-first—falling—into the Fire. Ibn Jurayj said: Hawiyah is the lowest depth of the Fire, as is related in the ḥadīth: “A man may utter a single word that incurs Allah’s wrath, and because of it he falls into the Fire farther than the distance between east and west” ⦗3⦘; in another narration: “for seventy autumns” ⦗4⦘.
Others have interpreted the phrase “his refuge will be Hawiyah” as referring to the lowest tier of the Fire, or as a general epithet for the Fire itself.