He has granted us tenfold reward for every good deed.’

Moses said, ‘By Allah, I pressed the Children of Israel to accept something far easier than that, yet they abandoned it. Go back to your Lord and ask Him to lighten it for you once more.’

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, ‘O Moses, by Allah, I am now too shy before my Lord to return to Him again after all the times I have gone back.’

He said, ‘Then descend in the name of Allah.’

The narrator continues: ‘He awoke while he was in the Sacred Mosque.’

Al-Bukhari recorded the report under 3570 and 7517, and Muslim under 262. The second wording belongs to al-Bukhari and includes the additional material, whereas Muslim cited only the opening portion up to the words, ‘while he was asleep in the Sacred Mosque,’ and then remarked, ‘He narrated the story in full, much like the report of Thabit al-Bunani, rearranging some parts, adding and omitting.’

Ibn Jarir also transmitted it (15/3–5), but his text differs: he places the rivers Euphrates and Nile in the second heaven and the river Kawthar in the third, whereas in al-Bukhari’s narration they are in the lowest heaven.