this world good, and good in the Hereafter, and protect us from the punishment of the Fire”?’”

This man, too, was driven by his fear of the punishment of the Fire and his desire for a safe outcome to ask that his punishment be hastened in this world. Yet he was mistaken and wrong to do so. Errors and mistakes are exceedingly common even when a person’s intentions are good and sound, and despite his righteousness, virtue, religious devotion, asceticism, scrupulousness, and miraculous gifts. Being a friend of Allah does not require being protected from errors and mistakes, or even from sins. The greatest friend of Allah after the Messengers is Abū Bakr al-Siddīq—may Allah be pleased with him. Yet it is authentically reported that, when he interpreted a dream, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to him:

“You were right about some of it and wrong about some of it.”

It seems—and Allah knows best—that when Abū Sulaymān said, “If He cast me into the Fire, I would be content with that,” someone may have conveyed what he understood these words to mean by reporting that he said, “Contentment means neither asking Allah for Paradise nor seeking His protection from the Fire.”

Abū Sulaymān’s actual statement does not indicate that he is content with that; rather, it indicates his resolve to be content with it. Yet we know that this resolve will not endure but will collapse. We also know that it would have been better to leave those words unsaid, and that they call for correction, just as the claims of Sumnūn and Ruwaym, and other such claims, called for correction. Nevertheless, there is an enormous difference between this statement and the other one.

The other statement implies that whoever asks Allah for Paradise and seeks His protection from the Fire is not content. There is a difference between someone who says, “If He did such-and-such, I would be content,” and