English translation
3536. Zirṛ bin Ḥubaish said: "I came to Ṣafwān bin 'Assāl Al-Murādī so he said to me: 'What has brought you, O Zirṛ?' So I said: 'The desire for knowledge.' So he said: 'It has been conveyed to me that the angels lower their wings for the seeker of knowledge, out of pleasure with what he is doing.'" He said: "So I said to him: 'Indeed there is some wavering'" – or – "some doubt in my chest concerning wiping over the Khuff after defecation. So have you retained anything from the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ concerning that?" He said: 'Yes, when we were travelers, he (ﷺ) used to order us not to remove our Khuff for three days and nights, except from sexual impurity, but not from defecation, urination, and sleep." He said: "So I said: 'So have you memorized anything from the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ concerning love?' He said: 'Yes, we were in one of our journeys with the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ when a man, a harsh, foolish Bedouin, who had been at the end of the group, called him with a loud voice, saying: "O Muḥammad! O Muḥammad!" So the people said to him, "Mah!"[1] Indeed, you have been prohibited from this.'" So the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ responded to him with similar to his voice: "Come." So he said: "A man loves a people but he has not reached them?" He said: "So the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "A man is with whomever he loves." Zirr said: "He did not cease reporting to me until he had reported that Allāh, the Mighty and Sublime, has appointed a gate in the west – its width is the distance of a seventy-year journey – for repentance; it shall not be locked until the sun rises from its direction, and that is the Statement of Allāh, Blessed be He and Most High, in the Ayah: The Day some of the signs of your Lord come, no soul shall be benefited by its believing.."[1] (Hasan) [Abū 'Eisā said:] This Hadith is Hasan Ṣaḥīḥ.