to possess the most God-fearing heart of any one man among you, that would not increase My dominion in the least.

Likewise, O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, humankind and jinnkind, to possess the most impious heart of any single man among you, that would not diminish My dominion in the least.

O My servants, were the first of you and the last of you, humankind and jinnkind, to stand together on one plain and ask of Me, and were I then to grant each one whatever he requested, that would not lessen what I possess any more than a needle dipped into the sea diminishes it.

O My servants, it is only your deeds that I record for you, and then I shall repay you in full. Whoever finds good, let him praise Allah; and whoever finds other than that, let him blame none but himself.”

Saʿīd said, “Whenever Abū Idrīs related this hadith, he would drop to his knees.” It is narrated by Muslim, and we have also transmitted from Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241 AH) that he said, “The people of Syria possess no hadith more noble than this one.”

Explanation

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—states, in what he has transmitted from Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī (may Allah be pleased with him) in the Chapter on Striving, that the Prophet ﷺ said, quoting his Lord—glorified and exalted be He. In other words, the Messenger ﷺ narrated from Allah… and so forth. Such a report is termed by the scholars a hadith qudsī, or “divine hadith,” whereas what comes directly from the Prophet ﷺ is called a prophetic hadith.

In this hadith qudsī Allah the Exalted says, “O My servants, I have forbidden injustice for Myself,” meaning that He will never wrong anyone—neither by adding sins a person did not commit, nor