ʿAbd Allah, the son of Imam Aḥmad, said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Numayr related to us; Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān related to us; Ḥarīz (1) ibn ʿUthmān related to us, from Shuraḥbīl ibn Shufaʿah, who said:

Utbah ibn ʿAbd al-Sulamī met me and said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘No Muslim whose three children die before reaching the age of accountability (ḥinth) will fail to find them awaiting him at the eight gates of Paradise; he may then enter through whichever of them he wishes.’”

Ibn Mājah also transmitted it from Ibn Numayr (2).

Al-Bayhaqī reports—through al-Walīd ibn Muslim, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, from Abū al-Muthannā al-Malikī (3)—that he heard ʿUtbah ibn ʿAbd al-Sulamī relate from the Prophet ﷺ, in a narration concerning the sincere warrior, the sinner, and the hypocrite. In that narration he said:

“Paradise has eight gates, and the sword effaces sins, yet it does not efface hypocrisy …” —the full ḥadīth is lengthy (4).

Earlier we cited the agreed-upon ḥadīth—through Abū Zurʿah—from Abū Hurayrah, in the narration about intercession, in which he said:

“Allah will say, ‘O Muḥammad, admit from your community those upon whom there is no reckoning through the rightmost gate, while they may share the remaining gates with other people.’ By Him in whose hand is the soul of Muḥammad, the distance between the two leaves of one of the gates of Paradise, between its jambs, is like the distance between Mecca and Hajar, or between Mecca and Busra.” (5)

In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim it is reported, from Khālid ibn ʿUmayr al-ʿAdawī, that ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān delivered a sermon to them and, after praising and extolling Allah, said:

“To proceed: truly this world has announced its severance (6) and has swiftly turned its back (7); nothing remains of it but a residue like the last drops that trickle from a vessel, which its owner gathers. You are moving on from it to a home that never perishes, so depart with the best provisions you possess. It has been related to us that a stone is cast from the edge of Hell and it plunges therein for seventy years without reaching its bottom. By Allah, it will surely be filled—are you amazed? And it has also been related to us that the span between the two leaves of a single gate of Paradise is a forty-year journey, yet a day will come when it is congested with crowds. I remember myself as one of seven with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; we had no food except the leaves of trees until the corners of our mouths became sore. I found a cloak, so I tore it in two and shared it with Saʿd ibn Mālik: I wrapped half around my waist and Saʿd wrapped the other half around his. Today, however, there is not one of us but that he awakens as the governor of a province—and I …”