sees Him privately, at one and the same time, as related in several hadiths. Indeed, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, explained that each person can see one of His creations—the moon—privately whenever he wishes. With this clarified, we say:

Of “the hadiths containing details additional to this hadith,” some mention seeing Allah on Friday without relating its degree to Friday prayer in this world, as in Abū Hurayrah’s hadith about the market in Paradise. Others state that, on Friday in the Hereafter, people will sit near Allah in positions corresponding to when they set out for Friday prayer in this world, without mentioning seeing Him—as in the previously cited hadith of Ibn Masʿūd traced back to the Prophet. Still others mention both matters, and these constitute the majority of the hadiths.

The hadiths that mention “seeing Allah alone,” without relating its degree to Friday prayer, are not inferior to those that include this detail, either in number or in the strength of their chains of transmission. Rather, those that include this detail are more numerous, and some have stronger chains of transmission than those other reports. Even if those other reports were more numerous, and this additional detail were transmitted through only one chain comparable to theirs, its acceptance or rejection would be governed by the same ruling as the report to which it adds, since there is no contradiction.

Even supposing that some of these reports, but not others, became well known among “some of the general public” who hear hadiths from storytellers or critics, or among some who read hadiths without taking care to distinguish between them, this would carry no weight whatsoever. How many things are widely known among the general public—indeed, among many jurists, Sufis, and speculative theologians, or