- “When the believer is made to sit in his grave, he is approached and then testifies that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. That is the meaning of His saying: ‘Allah keeps firm those who believe with the firm word.’ [He said: It was revealed concerning the punishment of the grave.]”
Reported by al-Bukhari (1369 and 4699)—the additional wording occurs in his other version. Its wording in that other version is:
“The Muslim, when questioned in the grave, testifies that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. That is the meaning of His saying: ‘Allah keeps firm those who believe with the firm word in the life of this world and in the Hereafter.’”
Muslim (8/262), Abu Dawud (4700), al-Tirmidhi (3120), al-Nasa’i (1/290), Ibn Majah (4269), Ibn Hibban in his Sahih (206), al-Baghawi in Sharh al-Sunnah (1520), al-Tayalisi (745), and Ahmad (4/282 and 291–292) also reported it in a similar form, all through the chain of Shuʿbah: Alqamah ibn Marthad informed me; he said: I heard Saʿd ibn ʿUbaydah, from al-Bara’ ibn ʿAzib, attributing it to the Prophet with this wording. Al-Tirmidhi said:
“A good, authentic hadith.”
Al-Baghawi said:
“A hadith whose authenticity is agreed upon.”
It also has another chain, related by Sufyan from his father, from Khaythamah, from al-Bara’ ibn ʿAzib, in abbreviated form:
“‘Allah keeps firm those who believe with the firm word in the life of this world and in the Hereafter’: it was revealed concerning the punishment of the grave.”
It has a third chain from al-Bara’ ibn ʿAzib, which is very lengthy, spanning approximately four pages.