For this reason we can attest today that ʿUkkāshah ibn Miḥṣan—may Allah be pleased with him—will enter Paradise without any reckoning or punishment, for the Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—said to him, “You are one of them.”
Another man then stood up and said, “Pray to Allah to make me one of them!” The Prophet answered, “ʿUkkāshah has beaten you to it.” Thus he declined the request, but in the kindest manner: he did not say, “You are not among them,” rather he said, “ʿUkkāshah has preceded you.”
Some have said that the Prophet knew the man who made the request was a hypocrite, and a hypocrite will never enter Paradise, much less without reckoning or punishment. Other scholars held that the Prophet spoke so in order not to open the door for anyone who does not deserve to enter Paradise without reckoning or punishment to stand up and say, “Pray that I be included.”
In any case, we do not possess certain knowledge that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—refrained from supplicating for him for one particular reason; Allah knows best. We do, however, draw a lesson from this: the Prophet’s gracious way of declining. His words “ʿUkkāshah has beaten you to it” caused no hurt or sorrow, and—glory be to Allah—this has become a proverb to this very day: whenever someone asks for something that has already been granted to another, people say, “ʿUkkāshah beat you to it.”
Some scholars have raised an objection to this hadith, saying: “If a person is forced…"