Prison of the Believers and Paradise of the Disbelievers

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani, once passed a market place. He was the chief justice in Cairo, Egypt, at the time, and he was wealthy. There was a large entourage around him of students and people who wanted to ask question and seeking his counsel and assistance. He was on a beautiful horse and dressed in beautiful clothes. Suddenly a Jewish man, who sold hot oil, appeared. His clothes was soiled with oil, and he was dirty and disheveled. He grabbed the harness of Ibn Hajar's horse and said,

"O Shaykh al-Islam, you suppose that your Prophet said that this world is the prison of the believers and paradise of the disbelievers. [the hadith was related by Muslim and Tirmidhi from Abu Hurayra]

So what prison are you in [with all this wealth and status] and what Paradise am I in [poverty and social abasement]?"

Ibn Hajar answered him:

“Although you have a miserable life on earth, you will consider yourself in paradise compare to what you will suffer in the hereafter if you die as an unbeliever. For me with all this bounty I have, if Allah Subhanahu wata’ala will reward me with Paradise, then this life will be like a prison to me compared to life in Paradise.” The Jew said, “If it is so, then I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.”

Ibn Hajar was born in 773 in Egypt. He was one of the greatest hadith masters of the second half of the Islamic scholarship, considered to be one of the Amirul Mu'minin of hadith (the commander of the believers in the science of hadith), term only given to a limited number of scholars.

He authored the Fath al-Bari, a great hadith commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari. He began the enormous task of assembling his Fath al-Bari in 817 and when he completed it in Rajab 842, a great celebration was held in an open place near Cairo, in the presence of the scholars, judges, and leading personages of Egypt. Ibn Hajar sat on a platform and read out the final pages of his work, and then poets recited eulogies and gold was distributed. It was, says the historian Ibn Iyas, ‘the greatest celebration of the age in Egypt.’

The Shaykh al-Islam passed away in 852. His funeral was attended by 'fifty thousand people,' including the sultan and the caliph; ‘even the Christians grieved.’ He was remembered as a gentle man, short, slender, and white-bearded, a lover of calligraphy, much inclined to charity; 'good to those who wronged him, and forgiving to those he was able to punish.'

His lifetime’s proximity to the hadith had imbued him with a deep love of the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, as is shown nowhere more clearly than in the poetry assembled in his Diwan, an original manuscript of which has been preserved at the Egyptian National Library. A few lines will suffice to show this well:

By the gate of your generosity stands a sinner, who is mad with love,
O best of mankind in radiance of face and countenance!
Through you he seeks a means [tawassala], hoping for Allah’s forgiveness of slips;
from fear of Him, his eyelid is wet with pouring tears.
Although his genealogy attributes him to a stone [hajar],
how often tears have flowed, sweet, pure and fresh!

May Allah increase our love for the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and resurrect us with him, and enter us into the highest Paradise with him. Ameen.

Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam