I said to them, “I have seen astonishing things tonight—what exactly was it that I witnessed?” They replied, “We will explain it to you.

The first man you came upon whose head was being smashed with a stone is one who took hold of the Qur’an and then discarded it, and who sleeps through the obligatory prayer.

The man whose mouth, nostril, and eye were being torn back to the nape of his neck is the one who leaves his house in the morning and tells a lie that travels to the horizons.

The naked men and women you saw inside a structure like a furnace are the adulterers, both male and female.

The man swimming in the river and made to swallow stones is the one who consumes usury.

The repulsive man tending the fire, feeding it and circling around it, is Mālik, the keeper of Hell.

The exceptionally tall man in the garden is Abraham, and the children around him are every child who died upon the innate disposition (fiṭrah). In al-Burqānī’s narration: every child born upon the fiṭrah.

Some of the Muslims asked, “O Messenger of Allah, what about the children of the idolaters?” He replied, “The children of the idolaters as well.”

As for the people whose one side was handsome and the other side ugly, they are a people who mixed righteous deeds with others that were evil, and Allah has forgiven them.”

Related by al-Bukhārī.

In another of his versions: “Last night I saw two men who came to me and led me out to a land…”