the gates of Your mercy.”

When he left, he would likewise invoke blessings and peace upon Muḥammad and say, “My Lord, forgive me my sins and open for me the gates of Your bounty.”

Al-Tirmidhī (2/127–128), Ibn Mājah (1/259) and Aḥmad (6/282–283 and 283) recorded it through the route of Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm → Layth ibn Abī Sulaym → ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan → his mother Fāṭimah bint al-Ḥusayn → her grandmother, the elder Fāṭimah—may Allah be pleased with her. The wording cited by al-Tirmidhī and Aḥmad is the one given above, and they add: Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm said, “I met ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan in Mecca and asked him about this ḥadīth. He related it to me, saying: ‘When he entered he would say, My Lord, open for me a gate of Your mercy; and when he left he would say, My Lord, open for me a gate of Your bounty.’”

Ibn Mājah’s version is identical, except that in both places it has, “In the name of Allah, and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah,” instead of “May Allah bless and grant peace to Muḥammad.” This is also one of Aḥmad’s narrations.

Ibn al-Sunnī likewise reported it (p. 31, no. 85) through Saʿīr ibn al-Khumus from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan with the wording: “He praised Allah and pronounced His name” in both positions, while the rest of the text is the same.

The insertion of “he praised Allah” is irregular—in fact, objectionable—because it comes via Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Kindī from Saʿīr. Although Muṭīn and others deemed him truthful, al-Nasāʾī said, “He is not strong.”