953 — “I have never seen anything like the Fire: the one fleeing from it is asleep; nor anything like Paradise: the one seeking it is asleep.”

Ibn al-Mubarak narrated it in al-Zuhd (no. 27), al-Tirmidhi (2/99), Abu Nuʿaym in al-Hilyah (8/178) and Sifat al-Jannah (6/1), al-Qudaʿi in Musnad al-Shihab (67/3), and al-Salafi in Muʿjam al-Safar (153/2), through Yahya ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Madini, from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: and he mentioned it. Abu Nuʿaym said: “No one narrated it from ʿUbayd Allah ibn Mawhab except his son Yahya.”

I say: He is abandoned, and his father is unknown. Al-Tirmidhi said: “We know this hadith only through the narration of Yahya ibn ʿUbayd Allah, and he is weak according to most hadith scholars.”

I say: Ibn al-Mubarak also narrated it (28) through Ismaʿil ibn Muslim, from al-Hasan, who mentioned it as a report attributed to the Companion; this is more likely to be correct. I then found two corroborating reports attributed to the Prophet that strengthen it. The first is from ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, attributed to the Prophet, with the same wording. Al-Sahmi narrated it in Tarikh Jurjan (pp. 302, 335) through Saʿd ibn Saʿid, from Abu Taybah, from Kurz ibn Wabrah, from al-Rabiʿ ibn Khuthaym, from him.