- ʿAbd Allāh narrated to us; Abū ʿAmr Naṣr ibn ʿAlī related to me; Muḥammad ibn Yazīd ibn Khunayṣ told us, saying: “I heard Sufyān al-Thawrī, and we had entered to visit him while he was ill. He said to Saʿīd ibn Ḥassān al-Makhzūmī, ‘How is that ḥadīth you once recounted to me?’
Saʿīd replied, ‘Umm Ṣāliḥ narrated it to me, from Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah, from Umm Ḥabībah—the wife of the Prophet ﷺ—who reported that the Prophet ﷺ said:
‘Every word the son of Adam utters is held against him, not in his favour, except commanding what is right, forbidding what is wrong, or the remembrance of Allah Most High.’
A man then remarked to Sufyān, ‘How severe this ḥadīth is!’ Sufyān asked, ‘And in what way is it severe?’ The man answered, ‘Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says:
‘There is no good in much of their private conversation, except for one who enjoins charity, righteousness, or reconciliation between people’ (al-Nisāʾ 4:114);
‘And they exhort one another to truth, and exhort one another to patience’ (al-ʿAṣr 103:3);
‘They will not intercede except for those whom He approves’ (al-Anbiyāʾ 21:28);
‘Except for those to whom the Most Merciful has granted leave, and whose words are upright’ (al-Nabaʾ 78:38).’
Sufyān concluded, ‘This is the speech of my Lord—glorified be He—which Gabriel, peace be upon him, brought down.’