Anas ibn Mālik narrated that God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: 1. Paradise is surrounded by displeasures 2. and the Fire is surrounded by tempting pleasures.
Sufyān ibn ‘Abdullāh al-Thaqafī narrated: 1. I said: ‘Messenger of God, tell me something of Islam about which I will not need to ask anyone after you’. (In Abu Usāmah’s narration: ‘about which I will not need to ask anyone else’.) 2. The Prophet said: ‘Say: I believe in God, then steadfastly pursue the right way’.
Abu Barzah al-Aslamī narrated that God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: 1. On the Day of Judgement, no one’s feet will move until one has been asked 2. about his life: how he lived through it? 3. About his knowledge: what did he do with it? 4. About his wealth: how he earned it and how he spent it? 5. About his body: how he used it?
Al-Nu‘mān ibn Bashīr narrated saying: I heard God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) say; and al-Nu‘mān pointed to his ears with his two fingers: 1. What is lawful is plain and what is unlawful is plain; 2. and in between are doubtful matters unknown to many people. 3. Whoever avoids doubtful matters clears himself in regard to his religion and his honour; 4. but the one who slips into the doubtful will fall into what is unlawful. [He is] like a shepherd who pastures close to a sanctuary, all but grazing therein. 5. For certain, every king has a sanctuary, and for certain God’s sanctuary is His prohibitions. 6. Indeed, there is in the body a morsel of flesh which, if it be whole, all the body is whole, and which, if it be diseased, all the body is diseased. Indeed, it is the heart.
‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Umar narrated: 1. God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) held me by the shoulder and said: ‘Be in this world as though you are a stranger 2. or a wayfarer’. 3. Ibn ꜤUmar used to say: ‘At evening do not expect [to live till] morning, and at morning do not expect [to live till] evening. 4. Take from your health for your illness 5. and from your life for your death’.
Mu‘āwiyah narrated that God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said:1. When God wishes to grant goodness to a person He gives him an insight into the religion. 2. I am only a distributor, but God is the Giver. 3. This community shall continue to adhere to the divine faith, unperturbed by those who oppose them until God’s will is done.
Abu al-Dardāʼ said: I heard God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) say: 1. When a person takes a way to pursue knowledge, God will facilitate his way to Heaven. 2. Angels put down their wings, feeling pleased with the pursuer of knowledge. 3. All dwellers of Heaven and earth, including fish in water, pray for the forgiveness of [the sins of] the one who pursues knowledge. 4. The superiority of a scholar to one who devotes much time in worship is similar to the superiority of the moon to all planets. 5. Scholars are the heirs of prophets. Prophets do not bequeath any amount of money, large or small, but they bequeath knowledge. Whoever takes it holds to a rich inheritance.
Abu Mūsā al-Ash‘arī narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said:1. The guidance and knowledge God, Mighty and Exalted, has sent me with is like a rain that has fallen on a certain land. 2. A portion of it was fertile: it absorbed the water and produced much vegetation and grass. 3. Another portion was hard, retaining the water. God enables people to benefit by it, using the water to drink, give others and cultivate their land. 4. The rain fell on yet another portion that is flat and barren. It neither retains the water nor produces vegetation. 5. This is comparable to one who acquires good understanding of the divine faith and benefits by the message God has given me: he learns and teaches, contrasted to the one who pays no attention to it, rejecting God’s guidance with which I am the Messenger’.
‘Abdullāh ibn ‘Amr narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 1. Deliver from me, even though it may be one verse. 2. Relate what you hear from the Children of Israel; there is no harm. 3. Whoever attributes to me something that I have not said shall take his place in the Fire.
Zayd ibn Thābit narrated, saying: I heard God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) say: 1. May God grant comeliness to a person who might have heard a hadith from us, and he retained it in memory until he delivered it. 2. It may happen that someone carries real knowledge to one who is a better scholar. 3. And it may happen that someone carries real knowledge, but he himself is not a scholar.
‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ narrated that he heard God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) say: 1. If a judge looks carefully into a dispute and returns a judgement, then if his judgement is right, he earns double reward. 2. If he looks carefully into it and returns a wrong judgement, he earns a single reward.
Al-‘Irbāḍ ibn Sāriyah narrated: 1. God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) stood up one day and gave us a strong admonition, that made our hearts tremble and our eyes tearful. 2. People said: ‘Messenger of God, this sounds like the admonition of one who is bidding farewell. Give us a lasting advice’. 3. He said: I urge you to maintain your fear of God 4. and to listen and obey even when the one to obey is an Abyssinian slave. 5. You shall witness after me much disagreement. Therefore, hold on to my Sunnah [i.e. my way] and the sunnah of the rightly-guided ones who succeed me. Hold on tight to it and make sure not to depart from it. 6. Beware of things introduced [into the religion], for each such introduction is a deviation, and every deviation leads astray.
‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb narrated saying that God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: 1. Actions are but by intention 2. And every man shall have but that which he intended. 3. Thus, he whose migration is [intended] for God and His Messenger, his migration is for God and His Messenger, 4. And he whose migration is for the achievement of some worldly benefit or for taking some woman in marriage, his migration is for that for which he migrated’.
Abu Mūsā al-Ash‘arī narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 1. A house in which God’s name is frequently mentioned and one in which God’s name is not mentioned may be compared to one who is alive and one who is dead. 2. In al-Bukhari’s version: The one who remembers his Lord and the one who does not remember his Lord are like the one who is alive and the one who is dead.
‘Abdullāh ibn Busr said that 1. A man said to the Prophet: ‘Messenger of God, Islamic teachings are too numerous for me. Point out to me something to which I can hold on.’ 2. The Prophet said to him: ‘Let your tongue be always fresh with the remembrance of God’.
Shaddād ibn Aws narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 1. The best formula for seeking forgiveness is to say: Oh God, You are my Lord. There is no deity other than You. You have created me and I am Your servant. 2. I honour my covenant with You and my promise to You as much as I can. 3. I seek refuge with You from the evil of what I have committed. 4. I acknowledge Your Grace and I confess to my sinful actions, 5. so forgive me. Only You forgive sinful actions. 6. He said: ‘If a person says this during the day then dies before he gets to the evening, he is one of the people of Heaven; and if he says it at night and dies before he gets to the morning, he is one of the people of Heaven’.
Abu ꜤAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī narrated from ꜤUthmān ibn ꜤAffān that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 1. ‘The best of you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it’. 2. Abu ꜤAbd al-Raḥmān taught the recitation of the Qur’an during ꜤUthmān’s reign, up to al-Ḥajjāj’s time. 3. He said: This is what has placed me in this position of mine.
Sa‘īd ibn al-MuꜤallā narrated: 1. I was praying in the mosque when God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) called me, but I did not answer him. 2. I said: ‘Messenger of God, I was praying’. 3. He said: ‘Has God not said: “Believers, respond to the call of God and the Messenger when he calls you to that which will give you life?”’ (8: 24) 4. He then said to me: ‘Before you leave the mosque, I shall teach you a surah, which is the greatest surah in the Qur’an’. 5. He then took me by the hand. When he was about to go out, I said to him: ‘Have you not said: I shall teach you a surah, which is the greatest surah in the Qur’an’. 6. He said: ‘Praise be to God, the Lord of all the worlds (1: 2) It is the seven oft-repeated verses and the sublime Qur’an I have been given’.
Ubay ibn Ka‘b narrated: 1. God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: “Abu al-Mundhir, do you know which is the greatest verse of God’s Book that is with you?” 2. I said: “God and His Messenger know best”. 3. He said: “Abu al-Mundhir, do you know which is the greatest verse of God’s Book that is with you?” 4. I said: “God: there is no deity but Him, the Ever-Living, the Eternal Master of all”. .5. He patted me on my chest 6. and said: “By God! Congratulations to you on your knowledge, Abu al-Mundhir”.
Abu Sa‘īd al-Khudrī narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to his companions: 1. Will any of you be unable to recite one-third of the Qur’an during a night? 2. They felt the task very hard and said: Who of us can manage that, Messenger of God? .3. He said: God, the One, the Eternal, the Absolute is one-third of the Qur’an.
