The two angels' questioning of the dead in the grave

Abu Dawud relates that the dead person hears the stamping of the two angels' sandals as they turn away, and is asked 'this one — who is your Lord? What is your religion? Who is your prophet?' If he answers they say 'we have known you' and he is furnished from Paradise; if he refuses he is struck with an iron hammer Abu Dawud 4753.

Muslim, Tirmidhi and Nasa'i carry other versions of the grave questioning, in which the two angels ask the dead three times each; the believer answers 'I testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger' ^{1 2 3}.

These reports belong to the matters of the unseen reported by permission of God; the books of hadith place them in the chapters of asceticism and heart-softening, and this browser gathers them with the rest of the angels' meetings with human beings, linking them to the 'honourable scribes' and the 'angel of death' records Abu Dawud 4753 ¹.