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Is there a contradiction in Abu Dawud’s Hadith between informing Adam that some of his progeny will enter Hellfire while he is in Paradise, and Adam not knowing that he will be expelled from it?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The hadith about wiping Adam's back and extracting his progeny, and what relates to their creation for Paradise or Hell, is weak due to its broken chain of transmission (inqita') and the anonymity of some of its narrators, despite the existence of corroborating narrations that some scholars have deemed hasan (good). The wonder about Adam's knowledge of the progeny's destiny before his descent to Earth is not warranted, as the narration does not state that Adam was informed of this, or that he realized the location of this event was Earth and not the Paradise he inhabited. There is another hadith narrated by Abu Hurayrah describing Adam's vision of his progeny, but it is devoid of any indication that Adam understood his descent to Earth, and therefore this wonder is not necessitated. This matter is from the unseen, and one should not generate problems around it without a scholarly basis.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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