and then leave it until you meet me?’ He replied, ‘Indeed—but I also heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say’—he related the report and concluded—‘So I do not know in which of the two handfuls I belong.’

Its isnād is sound.

There are further narrations on this subject from Abū Mūsā, Abū Saʿīd, and others; whoever wishes may consult Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid (6/186–187).

The report of Abū Mūsā is found in Ḥadīth Lowayn (26/1); in its chain appears Rūḥ ibn al-Musayyib, who is “ṣuwayliḥ” (acceptable) according to Ibn Maʿīn.

Know that I have produced this ḥadīth and traced its various routes for two reasons:

1. One of the scholars, Shaykh Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-Fatanī al-Hindī, included it in his book Tadhkirat al-Mawḍūʿāt (p. 12) and declared it “a ḥadīth with a confused isnād.” I see no grounds for that ruling. As you have observed, the ḥadīth is authentic through multiple chains, with no confusion—unless he mistook it for another, genuinely confused report, or he referred to a different route and then failed to follow up the sound ones. Allah knows best.

2. Many people imagine that these aḥādīth—and there are many similar reports—mean that a person is forced in his voluntary deeds, since a decree regarding Paradise or Hell was passed on him long ago, before he was created. Others suppose the affair is disorderly or a matter of luck: whoever fell into the right-hand handful is among the blessed, while whoever fell into the other handful is among the wretched. All of them must realize that Allah—“There is nothing like unto Him” (Q 42:11)—is incomparable, whether in His Essence or