and say, “Welcome! You have returned more beautiful than when you left us.”
“He will reply, ‘Today we sat with our Lord, the Compeller, and it is only fitting that we should return as we have.’”
Al-Tirmidhī said: “This is a singular hadith; we know it only through this route. Suwayd ibn ʿAmr also narrated part of it from al-Awzāʿī.”
I say: Ibn Battah narrated this hadith in (al-Ibānah) through authentic chains of transmission from Abū al-Mughīrah ʿAbd al-Quddūs ibn al-Hajjāj, from al-Awzāʿī; and from Muhammad ibn Kathīr, from al-Awzāʿī, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sālih, who said: “Al-Hiql related to me, from al-Awzāʿī, who said: ‘I was informed that Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib met Abū Hurayrah and said: “I ask Allah to bring us together in the marketplace of Paradise.”’” He then related the hadith as cited above.
This shows that the hadith is reliably preserved from al-Awzāʿī. In those narrations, however, he named the person who related it to him, whereas in the remaining, latter narrations he did not name him. Allah knows best.
The implication of this hadith is that their wives were not with them at the Friday gathering in the Hereafter or in its marketplace. However, it does not rule out their having seen Allah in their dwellings. The men attributed their increased beauty and splendour to sitting with the Compeller, and the women shared in this increase in beauty and splendour, as previously mentioned in the most authentic hadiths.