these views are very weak indeed. Authentic, unambiguous hadiths narrated by the likes of Umar ibn al-Khattāb, his son Abd Allāh, Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī, and others cannot be rejected on such grounds. Ā’ishah, the Mother of the Believers, may Allah be pleased with her, has other comparable instances in which she rejected a hadith through interpretation and independent judgment, believing its meaning to be false when that was not in fact the case. Anyone who reflects on this subject will find that whoever rejects this authentic, unambiguous hadith, transmitted by a trustworthy narrator, on such grounds is mistaken.

Ā’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, narrated two wordings from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and she was truthful in what she transmitted. She narrated that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Allah indeed increases the disbeliever’s torment because of his family’s weeping over him.”

This agrees with Umar’s hadith, for if it is possible for Him to increase someone’s torment because of his family’s weeping, it is also possible for Him to torment another person in the first place because of his family’s weeping. For this reason, al-Shāfi‘ī rejected this hadith in Mukhtalif al-Hadīth on account of its meaning, saying:

“The more likely version is her other report: ‘They are weeping over him while he is being tormented in his grave.’”

Among those who accepted the import of this hadith, some supposed that this was a case of a person being punished for someone else’s sin, and that Allah does whatever He wills and decrees whatever He wishes. These people believed that Allah punishes a person for someone else’s sin, so they deemed it possible