Narrated Ibn Mas'ud said that God’s messenger who spoke the truth and whose word was believed told them the following:
The constituents of one of you are collected for forty days in his mother’s womb in the form of a drop, then they become a piece of congealed blood for a similar period, then they become a lump of flesh for a similar period. Then God sends to him an angel with four words who records his deeds, the period of his life, his provision, and whether he will be miserable or blessed: thereafter He breathes the spirit into him. By Him other than whom there is no god, one of you will do the deeds of those who go to paradise so that there will be only a cubit between him and it, then what is decreed will overcome him so that he will do the deeds of those who go to hell and will enter it; and one of you will do the deeds of those who go to hell so that there will be only a cubit between him and it, then what is decreed will overcome him so that he will do the deeds of those who go to paradise and will enter it.
Abu Huraira reported that God’s messenger told of Adam and Moses holding a disputation in their Lord’s presence and of Adam getting the better of Moses in argument. Moses said, “You are Adam whom God created with His hand, into whom He breathed of His spirit, to whom He made the angels do obeisance, and whom He caused to dwell in His garden; then because of your sin you caused mankind to come down to the earth.” Adam replied, “And you are Moses whom God chose to deliver His messages and to address, to whom He gave the tablets on which everything was explained, and whom He brought near as a confidant. How long before I was created did you find that God has written the Torah?” 1 Moses said, “Forty years.” Adam asked, “Did you find in it, ‘And Adam disobeyed his Lord and erred’?” 2 On being told that he did, he said, “Do you then blame me for doing a deed which God had decreed that I should do forty years before He created me?” God’s messenger said, “So Adam got the better of Moses in argument.”
Muslim transmitted it.
1 At-Taurat, a general name for the first five books of the Old Testament.
2 These words are in Quran, xx, 121.
وَعَن سهل بن سَعِيدٍ قَالَ: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: «إِنَّ الْعَبْدَ لَيَعْمَلُ عَمَلَ أَهْلِ النَّارِ وَإِنَّهُ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ وَيَعْمَلُ عَمَلَ أَهْلِ الْجنَّة وَإنَّهُ من أهل النَّار وَإِنَّمَا الْعمَّال بالخواتيم»
Sahl b. Sa’d reported God’s messenger as saying, “One man does the deeds of those who go to hell but is one of those who go to paradise, and another does the deeds of those who go to paradise but is one of those who go to hell, for judgment is given according to one’s final actions.”
