the heights of the sky, then you sought My forgiveness, I would forgive you and I do not mind. O son of Adam, if you were to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and then meet Me without associating anything with Me, I would come to you with forgiveness nearly as great as it." It was narrated by al-Tirmidhī (2/270) through the route of Kathīr ibn Fāʾid: Saʿīd ibn ʿUbayd said: I heard Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Muzanī say: Anas ibn Mālik told us: I heard the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) say: and he mentioned it and said: "A ḥadīth that is ḥasan gharīb, we do not know it except through this route." I said: Its narrators are reliable except for Kathīr ibn Fāʾid, as only Ibn Ḥibbān considered him reliable, and in "Taqrīb" it is mentioned that he is acceptable. I said: But the ḥadīth is ḥasan as al-Tirmidhī said, for it has a corroborating narration from Abū Dharr, narrated by Shahr ibn Ḥawshab from ʿUmar ibn Maʿdīkarib from him in a raised form with some rearrangement. It was recorded by al-Dārimī (2/322) and Aḥmad (5/172) through the route of Ghaylān ibn Jarīr from Shahr with it. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd - who is Ibn Bahram - contradicted him and said: Shahr narrated to us, Ibn Ghanm told me that Abū Dharr narrated it to him. It was recorded by Aḥmad (5/154) and Shahr has some weakness due to his memory, and if this difference is not due to his hesitation and poor memory, the first view is more correct because Ghaylān is more reliable than Ibn Bahram. It has another corroborating narration with al-Ṭabarānī in "his Muʿjams" from Ibn ʿAbbās, and it is extracted in "al-Rawḍ al-Naḍīr" (432). And it has another route from Abū Dharr in a shortened form with the wording: "Allāh said: A good deed is rewarded tenfold or more, and a bad deed is counted as one or I forgive it, and if you meet Me with sins nearly as great as the earth without associating anything with Me, I will meet you with forgiveness nearly as great as it."