Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād narrated, from Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abān, from his father, from Abū Qilābah, who said:
“My nephew was in the habit of drinking wine. He became ill and sent for me one night, saying, ‘Come quickly.’ When I arrived, I saw two dark figures standing near him. I exclaimed, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return; my nephew is doomed!’ Suddenly two radiant figures appeared at the skylight of the house. One of them said to the other, ‘Go down to him.’ When he descended, the two dark figures stepped aside. He sniffed the man’s mouth and said, ‘I find no remembrance (dhikr) of Allah here.’ Then he sniffed his belly and said, ‘I find no fasting here.’ Then he sniffed his legs and said, ‘I find no prayer here.’ His companion said to him, ‘We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return! A man of the community of Muhammad ﷺ with no goodness at all? Woe to you—go back and look once more.’ He went back and searched but found nothing. The other then went down, sniffed, and likewise found nothing. When he returned again, he discovered at the tip of the man’s tongue a single takbīrah—an utterance of “Allāhu akbar” made in the path of Allah, solely for the sake of Allah, at Antioch. They thereupon took his soul, the fragrance of musk filled the house, and the people attended his funeral. A hadith of a very rare kind.

The eminent scholar Abū [ʿAbd Allāh] Muḥammad al-Qurṭubī said in al-Tadhkira: Abū al-Qāsim Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Khuttalī also recorded in his book al-Dībāj: Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Ḥārith narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Majīd ibn Abī Rawwād narrated to us, from Maʿmar ibn Rāshid, from al-Ḥakam ibn Abān, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “When Allah has finished judging between His creation, He will bring forth a document from beneath the Throne that reads, ‘My mercy has outstripped My wrath, and I am the Most Merciful of the merciful.’ He will then bring out of the Fire a group equal in number to the people of Paradise—” or he said, “twice the people of Paradise.” He added, “I am most inclined to think that he said, ‘equal to the people of Paradise’—and written between their eyes will be: ‘Freed by Allah.’” (1)

Al-Tirmidhī narrated, with a chain raised to the Prophet, from Anas:
Allah—Exalted is He—will say, “Bring out of the Fire whoever remembered Me for a single day, or feared Me in a single gathering.” He said: ḥasan gharīb. (2)

He also reported from Abū Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“Two men from among those who enter the Fire will cry out loudly. The Lord, Exalted is He, will say, ‘Bring the two of them out.’ When they are brought forth He will ask, ‘Why were your cries so intense?’ They will answer, ‘We did that hoping You would show mercy to us.’ He will say, ‘My mercy to you is this: go back and cast yourselves into the spot of Hell from which you came.’ So they will go; one of them will hurl himself in, whereupon the Fire will become for him coolness and peace. The other will stand back and will not cast himself in. The Lord—Exalted is He—will say, ‘What prevented you from throwing yourself in as your companion did?’ He will reply, ‘My Lord, I am filled with hope that You would not return me there after You had brought me out of it.’ The Lord will say, ‘Your hope is granted.’ Then both of them will enter Paradise together by the mercy of Allah.” (3)