Foundation  /  Al-Arbaʿūn al-Nawawiyya  /  Hadith 4

Creation in the womb, and the decree

إِنَّ أَحَدَكُمْ يُجْمَعُ خَلْقُهُ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ أَرْبَعِينَ يَوْمًا نُطْفَةً، ثُمَّ يَكُونُ عَلَقَةً مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ يَكُونُ مُضْغَةً مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ يُرْسَلُ إِلَيْهِ الْمَلَكُ فَيَنْفُخُ فِيهِ الرُّوحَ، وَيُؤْمَرُ بِأَرْبَعِ كَلِمَاتٍ: بِكَتْبِ رِزْقِهِ، وَأَجَلِهِ، وَعَمَلِهِ، وَشَقِيٌّ أَوْ سَعِيدٌ. فَوَاللَّهِ الَّذِي لَا إِلَهَ غَيْرُهُ إِنَّ أَحَدَكُمْ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ حَتَّى مَا يَكُونُ بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَهَا إِلَّا ذِرَاعٌ، فَيَسْبِقُ عَلَيْهِ الْكِتَابُ فَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ النَّارِ فَيَدْخُلُهَا. وَإِنَّ أَحَدَكُمْ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ النَّارِ حَتَّى مَا يَكُونُ بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَهَا إِلَّا ذِرَاعٌ، فَيَسْبِقُ عَلَيْهِ الْكِتَابُ فَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ فَيَدْخُلُهَا

Inna aḥadakum yujmaʿu khalquhu fī baṭni ummihi arbaʿīna yawman nuṭfah, thumma yakūnu ʿalaqatan mithla dhālik, thumma yakūnu muḍghatan mithla dhālik, thumma yursalu ilayhi l-malaku fa-yanfukhu fīhi r-rūḥ, wa-yuʾmaru bi-arbaʿi kalimāt: bi-katbi rizqih, wa-ajalih, wa-ʿamalih, wa-shaqiyyun aw saʿīd.

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said: The Messenger of God ﷺ — and he is the truthful, the confirmed — told us:

“Each of you is gathered in his mother’s womb for forty days as a drop, then is a clinging form for the like of that, then is a lump of flesh for the like of that. Then the angel is sent to him and breathes the spirit into him, and is commanded with four words: to write down his provision, his term, his deeds, and whether he is wretched or fortunate.

By God, beside whom there is no god — one of you does the deeds of the people of the Garden until there is nothing between him and it but a forearm’s length, and then what is written overtakes him and he does the deeds of the people of the Fire and enters it. And one of you does the deeds of the people of the Fire until there is nothing between him and it but a forearm’s length, and then what is written overtakes him and he does the deeds of the people of the Garden and enters it.”

Translation by Alyph Academy. We translate rather than reprint: the classical Arabic is public domain, published English translations are not.

Reading notes

• The oath is unusual and it is doing something. Very few hadith open their second half with فوالله الذي لا إله غيره. The subject matter is one people resist, and the narration marks that resistance by swearing before the difficult part rather than after it.
• “He is the truthful, the confirmed.” الصادق المصدوق — al-ṣādiq al-maṣdūq — is Ibn Masʿūd’s own aside, not part of the Prophet’s words. Truthful in what he says; confirmed in what he is told. It is inserted because what follows is unseen and cannot be checked by anyone hearing it.
• Three stages, then a fourth thing that is not a stage. Nuṭfa, ʿalaqa, muḍgha are the same sequence the Qur’an gives at al-Ḥajj 22:5 and al-Muʾminūn 23:14. The breathing of the spirit is not a fourth stage of the body; it is something given to it.
• How long is “forty days”? The wording here reads as forty for each stage — one hundred and twenty in all before the spirit. Other transmissions of this same hadith, including within the two Ṣaḥīḥs, phrase the timing differently, and the commentators divide over whether all three stages complete within forty days or take forty each. This is one of the best-known points of disagreement in the collection, and it has consequences in fiqh. It is not settled here.
• “Four words” is an idiom. كلمات here means matters or decrees, not four literal utterances — the same usage as in the Qur’anic kalimāt given to Ibrāhīm.
• The forearm’s length is the point of the hadith. The distance is deliberately tiny. The hadith is not about people who fail early; it is about the last stretch, and it removes any ground for confidence in one’s own record.
• What it is not saying. Read as a doctrine of despair, it would contradict hadith 1: if actions counted for nothing, intention would not matter either. Al-Nawawī and the commentators after him read the two endings together with the wording found in other narrations of this hadith — that the one who ends badly was doing those deeds only as they appear to people. Note that this reconciliation comes from the wider set of narrations, not from the wording printed here.

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