saw her blind, groping along the walls and repeating, “Saʿīd’s supplication has struck me.” Later she walked past a well in the very courtyard where she had taken him to court, slipped into it, and it became her grave.

[Explanation]
One of the honor-bestowing miracles granted to the awliyāʾ (Allah’s close allies) is that Allah answers their prayers in a way they themselves witness. Saʿīd ibn Zayd ibn ʿAmr ibn Nufayl, may Allah be pleased with him—one of the ten Companions promised Paradise—was sued by a woman who claimed he had taken part of her land. She brought the case before Marwān, whereupon Saʿīd said, “Could I take anything of her land after what I heard from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him?” They asked, “And what did you hear?” He replied, “I heard the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, say: ‘Whoever unlawfully takes a handspan of land, Allah will collar him with it on the Day of Resurrection, extending through the seven earths,’ or, ‘he will be girded with it on the Day of Resurrection through the seven earths.’ How, then, could I seize anything from her after hearing this from the Prophet?”

Any believer who has faith in Allah and His Messenger, once he hears such a report from the Truthful and Trustworthy Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, could never wrong anyone by taking even a handspan of his land. The Prophet states that if a person were to appropriate a single handspan of land—the handspan being mentioned for emphasis; in reality, even less than that, down to a single centimeter—the piece he took would encircle his neck on the Day of Resurrection, extending through all seven layers of earth. The earths are seven strata, as Allah the Exalted says: “Allah is the One who created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof” (Q 65:12).

When someone owns a parcel of land, his ownership reaches down to the lowest depths, to the seventh earth, and likewise rises to the heights of its airspace up to the Pleiades; no one can