“Yes, my Lord! This one—I will ask You for nothing else.” Yet his Lord will excuse him, for he sees what he cannot bear to forgo. So He will bring him near it.

Then he will hear the voices of the people of Paradise and say: “O my Lord, admit me into it!” He will say: “O son of Adam, what would satisfy you? Would it please you if I gave you the world and the like of it along with it?” He will say: “My Lord, are You mocking me while You are the Lord of the worlds?”

Ibn Masʿūd laughed and said, “Will you not ask me why I am laughing?” They asked, “Why are you laughing?” He said:

“Because the Lord of the worlds laughed when he said, ‘Are You mocking me while You are the Lord of the worlds?’ He will say: ‘I am not mocking you, but I have power over whatever I will.’”—In another narration: “All-Powerful.”—(1)

Muslim (1/119–120), Abū ʿAwānah (1/142–144), Ibn Ḥibbān (9/260/7387), Aḥmad (1/391–392 and 410–411), al-Ājurrī in al-Sharīʿah (p. 282–283), and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr (10/10/9775) recorded it through various chains from Ḥammād ibn Salamah, who said: Thābit narrated to us, from Anas, from Ibn Masʿūd, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said … and he related it. The other wording is reported by the latter three, while the wording here is Muslim’s.

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim, along with others, also recorded it through another route from Ibn Masʿūd in a highly abridged form. It has been cited in Mukhtaṣar al-Shamāʾil, no. 197.