فَقَالَ كَيْفَ كَانَ حُبُّكُمْ لِلدُّنْيَا قَالَ كَحُبِّ الصَّبِيِّ لِأُمِّهِ إِذَا أَقْبَلَتْ عَلَيْنَا فَرِحْنَا وَ سُرِرْنَا وَ إِذَا أَدْبَرَتْ عَنَّا بَكَيْنَا وَ حَزِنَّا قَالَ كَيْفَ كَانَتْ عِبَادَتُكُمْ لِلطَّاغُوتِ قَالَ الطَّاعَةُ لِأَهْلِ الْمَعَاصِي قَالَ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ أَمْرِكُمْ قَالَ بِتْنَا لَيْلَةً فِي عَافِيَةٍ وَ أَصْبَحْنَا فِي الْهَاوِيَةِ فَقَالَ وَ مَا الْهَاوِيَةُ فَقَالَ سِجِّينٌ قَالَ وَ مَا سِجِّينٌ قَالَ جِبَالٌ مِنْ جَمْرٍ تُوقَدُ عَلَيْنَا إِلَى يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ So he -as said: ‘How was your love for the world?’ He said, ‘Like the love of the child for its mother.
Whenever it came upon us, we were happy and joyful, and when it was distant from us, we cried and grieved. He -as said: ‘How was your worship for the tyrants?’ He said, ‘The obedience to the disobedient ones’. He -as said: ‘How was your end of your affairs?’ He said, ‘We slept at night in good health and we woke up in the morning in the Abyss’.
So he -as said: ‘And what is the Abyss?’ So he said, ‘A prison’ He -as said: ‘And what is the prison?’ He said, ‘A mountain of burning coal inflamed upon us up to the Day of Judgment’.
قَالَ فَمَا قُلْتُمْ وَ مَا قِيلَ لَكُمْ قَالَ قُلْنَا رُدَّنَا إِلَى الدُّنْيَا فَنَزْهَدَ فِيهَا قِيلَ لَنَا كَذَبْتُمْ قَالَ وَيْحَكَ كَيْفَ لَمْ يُكَلِّمْنِي غَيْرُكَ مِنْ بَيْنِهِمْ قَالَ يَا رُوحَ اللَّهِ إِنَّهُمْ مُلْجَمُونَ بِلِجَامٍ مِنْ نَارٍ بِأَيْدِي مَلَائِكَةٍ غِلَاظٍ شِدَادٍ وَ إِنِّي كُنْتُ فِيهِمْ وَ لَمْ أَكُنْ مِنْهُمْ فَلَمَّا نَزَلَ الْعَذَابُ عَمَّنِي مَعَهُمْ فَأَنَا مُعَلَّقٌ بِشَعْرَةٍ عَلَى شَفِيرِ جَهَنَّمَ لَا أَدْرِي أُكَبْكَبُ فِيهَا أَمْ أَنْجُو مِنْهَا He -as said: ‘So what did you all say and what was said to you?’ He said, ‘We said, ‘Return us to the world and we would be ascetic therein’.
It was Said to us, ‘You are all lying’. He -as said: ‘How come there did not speak to me -as anyone apart from you, in among them?’ He said, ‘O Spirit of Allah -azwj ! They are being reined by the rein of Fire at the hands of intensely harsh Angels, and I was among them and did not happen to be from them.
So when the Punishment descended, I was generalised with them, and I was attached to a branch upon the edge of Hell, not knowing whether I would be plunging into it or whether I would be Rescued from it’.