This ḥadīth proves that the Scale of deeds possesses two tangible pans and that deeds—although they are immaterial qualities—will nonetheless be weighed, for Allah is capable of all things. This forms part of the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah, and the reports on the matter are mutually corroborative, if not successive; see Sharḥ al-ʿAqīda al-Ṭaḥāwiyya, pp. 351–352 (Islamic Office edition).

136 – “Say: ma shāʾ Allāh thumma shiʾta (What Allah wills, then what you will), and say: wa rabb al-Kaʿbah (By the Lord of the Kaʿbah).”

Al-Ṭaḥāwī narrated it in al-Mushkil (1/357), al-Ḥākim (4/297), al-Bayhaqī (3/216), and Aḥmad (6/371–372) by way of al-Masʿūdī, from Saʿīd ibn Khālid, from ʿAbdullāh ibn Yasar, from Qutayla bint Ṣayfī, a woman of the tribe of Juhaynah, who said:
“A Jewish scholar came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘You are committing shirk! You say: ma shāʾ Allāh wa shiʾta (What Allah wills and what you will), and you say: wa l-Kaʿbah (By the Kaʿbah).’ The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then said,”—and she related the statement quoted above.

Al-Ḥākim declared its chain sound, and al-Dhahabī concurred.

I say: al-Masʿūdī suffered confusion in his later years, yet he was corroborated by Misʿar, from Maʿbad ibn Khālid, with the same report. Al-Nasāʾī (2/140) also transmitted it with a sound chain.

ʿAbdullāh ibn Yasar has another narration conveying the same meaning: “Do not say: ma shāʾ Allāh wa shāʾa fulān (What Allah wills and what so-and-so wills); rather say: ma shāʾ Allāh thumma shāʾa fulān (What Allah wills, then what so-and-so wills).”

137 – “Do not say: ma shāʾ Allāh wa shāʾa fulān; rather say: ma shāʾ Allāh thumma shāʾa fulān.”

It was related by Abū Dāwūd (4980), al-Ṭaḥāwī in Mushkil al-Āthār (1/90), al-Bayhaqī (3/216), and Aḥmad (5/384, 394, 398) through various routes from Shuʿbah, from Manṣūr ibn