Gardens of the Righteous — Page 5
RIYADH AS-SALIHIN 5 privy or the urinal. Now, you are one of the Companions of the Holy Prophet and. I have come to ask you: Did you hear him mention anything concerning it? He replied: Yes. He directed us that while we were on a journey we need not take off our socks for washing the feet in the course of ablutions during a period of three days and nights, except after consorting with our wives. In other cases, e. g. sleep, a visit to the privy or urinal etc. , the symbolic passing of the hands over socks would suffice during that period. I then asked him: Did you hear him say anything concerning love and affection? He replied: We were with the Holy. Prophet in the course of a journey when a desert Arab called out to him in a loud rough voice: O Muhammad! The Holy Prophet answered him in almost the same tone: Here I am. I said to the Arab: Fie on thee, lower thy voice in his presence; Allah has so commanded. To me he retorted: I will not lower my voice; and then addressing the Holy Prophet said: What about a person who loves a people but has not yet found himself in their company? The Holy. Prophet made answer: On the day of Judgment a person will be in the company of those he loves. He then continued talking to us and in the course of his talk made mention of a gateway in the west, the width of which could be traversed by a rider in forty or seventy years. Sufyan, who is one of the narrators of this hadith, adds: This gateway is in the direction of Syria. Allah created it along with the creation of the heavens and the earth. It is open for repentance, and will not be closed till the sun rises from that direction (Tirmidhi and others). 20. Abu Sa'id Khudri relates that the Holy Prophet said: An individual from among a people before you having killed as many as ninety-nine persons inquired who was the most learned person on earth. He was directed to a monk. . He went to the monk and said: I have killed ninety-nine persons. Is there any chance of repentance left for me? The monk answered: No. Forthwith he dispatched the monk also and completed a full century of victims. Then he inquired again: Who is the most learned person on earth? and was directed to a savant, to whom he said: I have killed a hundred persons. Is there a chance of repentance left for me? The savant said: Yes. What can stand between you and repentance? Proceed to such and such a land. In it there are people who worship. God. Join them in the worship of God and do not return to thine own land, for it is an evil place. So he set out. He had traversed only half the distance when he was overtaken by death, and a contention arose over him between the angels of mercy and the angels of torment. The angels of mercy pleaded that he had come a penitent turning towards God; and the angels of torment contended that he had never done a good deed. Then there arrived an angel in human form and the contending angels agreed that he should be the arbiter between them. He directed them: Measure the distance between the two lands. To whichever he is closer to that one he belongs. So they carried out the measurement and he was found to be closer to the land whither he was bound. The angels of mercy thus took charge of him (Bokhari and Muslim). One version has it that he was found to be closer to the land of the righteous by the width of a hand and was thus accounted one of them. Another version is that God directed the space on one