‘O Messenger of Allah, did you see your Lord?’ He replied, ‘Light—how could I see Him?’” (1). It has not been established that any Companion asked the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—about seeing Allah except for what (2) is related in this hadith.
What some of the common people relate—that Abū Bakr asked him and he replied, “I saw Him,” whereas Āishah asked him and he replied, “I did not see Him”—is, by the consensus of the scholars, a lie. No scholar has transmitted it with either a sound or a weak chain of transmission. It was for this reason that Imām Ahmad relied on Abū Dharr’s statement concerning whether the Prophet saw Allah (3), as did Uthmān ibn Saīd al-Dārimī (4).
As for the hadiths concerning the descent (5) to the lowest heaven (6) every night, they are the well-known, established hadiths recognized by hadith scholars (7). The same is true of the hadith concerning His drawing near on the afternoon of
(1) The hadith is found in Muslim, 1/161 (*Kitāb al-Īmān*, chapter on the Prophet’s statements, “Light—how could I see Him?” and “I saw light”). Al-Nawawī states in *Sharh Muslim*, 3/12: “As for the Prophet’s statement—peace and blessings be upon him—‘Light—how could I see Him?’ the word *nūr* (‘light’) is nunated; *annā* begins with an open hamza and has a doubled, open nūn; and *arāhu* begins with an open hamza. This is how all transmitters have related it in every textual witness and narration. It means: ‘His veil is light, so how could I see Him?’ Imām Abū Abd Allāh al-Māzirī—may Allah have mercy on him—said: ‘The pronoun in “see Him” refers to Allah, Glorified and Exalted. The meaning is that the light prevented me from seeing Him, just as intense lights ordinarily overwhelm the eyes and prevent them from perceiving whatever lies beyond them.’ See also the remainder of the discussion, pp. 12–13.
(2) The word “what” is omitted from (B) and (A).
(3) (N): “concerning the narration.” This is a corruption.
(4) Abū Dharr’s hadith is mentioned in al-Dārimī’s *al-Radd ‘alā Bishr al-Marīsī* (al-Fiqī ed.), pp. 57–58.
(5) (B), (A), (N), and (M): “the hadith of the descent.”
(6) (B), (A), (N), and (M): “the lowest heaven.”
(7) The hadiths concerning the descent were discussed above at 2/323, n. 6.