the very clouds of the sky, and then you asked Me for pardon, I would forgive you and I would not mind. Son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins filling nearly the whole earth, yet meet Me without ascribing any partner to Me, I would come to you with forgiveness just as vast.”

Al-Tirmidhī narrated it (2/270) through the route of Kathīr ibn Fāʾid. He said: “Saʿīd ibn ʿUbayd told us: I heard Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muzanī say: Anas ibn Mālik told us: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say …,” and he then quoted the ḥadīth, remarking: “A ḥadīth that is good and singular (ḥasan gharīb); we do not know it except through this chain.”

I (al-Albānī) say: All of its transmitters are declared reliable except Kathīr ibn Fāʾid; no one endorsed him but Ibn Ḥibbān, and in al-Taqrīb he is graded “acceptable” (maqbūl).

Nevertheless, the report is sound (ḥasan), as al-Tirmidhī stated, because it has a supporting narration from Abū Dharr. Shahr ibn Ḥawshab relates it from ʿUmar ibn Maʿdīkarib, from Abū Dharr in a marfūʿ form, though with some displacement in the wording. Al-Dārimī (2/322) and Aḥmad (5/172) recorded it through the path of Ghīlān ibn Jarīr from Shahr.

ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd—namely Ibn Bahrām—contradicted him, saying: “Shahr told us: Ibn Ghanm told me that Abū Dharr narrated it to him.” Aḥmad (5/154) preserved this version. Shahr’s weakness lies in his memory; and even if this variance is not itself an effect of his vacillation, the first chain is stronger, for Ghīlān is more trustworthy than Ibn Bahrām.

There is a further corroboration with al-Ṭabarānī in his assorted Muʿjams on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās; it is cited in al-Rawḍ al-Naḍīr (no. 432). Another route from Abū Dharr appears in abridged form with the wording:

“Allah, Majestic and Exalted, said: ‘A good deed is rewarded tenfold or even more, while a misdeed counts as one—or I may pardon it. Were you to meet Me with sins nearly filling the earth, so long as you did not associate anything with Me, I would meet you with forgiveness of equal measure.’”