testimony do you bear concerning him?’
He replies, ‘Muhammad. We bear witness that he is the Messenger of Allah, who brought the truth from Allah.’
He is told, ‘Upon this belief you lived, and upon it you will be resurrected, if Allah wills.’ Then a door to Paradise is opened for him, and he is told, ‘This is your dwelling and what Allah has prepared for you there.’ His joy and happiness increase. Then his grave is widened for him by seventy cubits and illuminated. His body is returned to that from which it originated, and his soul becomes the spirit of a bird feeding among the trees of Paradise. He said: This is what Allah Most High says:
‘Allah keeps those who believe firm with the firm word, in the life of this world and in the Hereafter. And Allah leaves the wrongdoers astray, and Allah does what He wills.’”
Regarding disbelief, he mentioned the opposite, saying: “His grave is constricted around him until his ribs interlock. This is the life of hardship of which Allah Most High says:
‘He will have a life of hardship, and We will raise him blind on the Day of Resurrection.’”
This hadith is shorter. The previously cited hadith of al-Barā’ is the longest in the Sunan collections; their compilers abridged it to present what it contains concerning the punishment of the grave. It appears in full in al-Musnad and elsewhere.
It is a sound, established hadith, in which the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) says:
“When the believing servant is approaching the Hereafter and departing from this world, angels with radiant faces, as though their faces were the sun, descend to him. They bring a shroud from the shrouds of Paradise and embalming perfume from the perfumes of Paradise. They sit at a distance from him as far as the eye can see. Then the Angel of Death comes and sits at his head, saying, ‘O pure soul, come out to forgiveness and approval.’
He said: “It flows out as a drop flows from the mouth of a waterskin, and he takes it. Once he has taken it, they do not leave it in his hand even for the blink of an eye