He reported God’s messenger as declaring that God says, “When I take away from my believing servant his favourite friend among the people of this world and he seeks his reward from me, he will have no other reward from me but paradise.”
He reported God’s messenger as saying to some women of the Ansar, “None of you will lose three children by death and seek a reward from God without entering paradise.” One of them asked, “Or two, messenger of God?” He replied, “Or two.”
Muslim transmitted it. Bukharl and Muslim have a version which says, “three who were not old enough to sin.”
Abu Huraira reported God’s messenger as saying, “No Muslim will suffer the death of three sons and go to hell, except to expiate the oath.”(Cf. Qur'an, xix, 71, which says everyone shall go down to it, and that this is a decree from God which must be accomplished. The meaning of the tradition is said to be that such people will go for a very brief time which will be enough to make this decree no longer applicable to them. The decree is treated as equivalent to an oath)
