Will you write the hadith narration stating that a person will be given a degree as big as a five-hundred-year distance in Paradise?

Dear Brother / Sister,

“Kiss your children a lot because you are given a degree in Paradise for every kiss; there is a distance of five hundred years between two degrees. The angels write down your kisses and record thawabs in your books.” (Musnadu Imam Zayd Ibn Ali, p. 505)

Abu Said al-Khudri states that the Messenger of Allah states the following about the verse “(The Companions of the Right Hand) And on Thrones (of Dignity), raised high” (al-Waqia): “Their height is as much as the distance between the sky and the earth. The distance between them is five hundred years on foot.” (Tirmidhi, Sifatul-Jannah 8, 2543)

The meaning of the hadith is clear but we want to mention an explanation by Tirmidhi related to the hadith: “Some scholars stated the following while interpreting the hadith: The meaning of it is as follows: The thrones are steps (of stairs); the distance between two steps is as much as the distance between the earth and the sky.“

Thus, some hadith interpreters deduced the following meaning: “The height of one of the steps on which high thrones are placed is as much as the distance between the earth and the sky.” Turbushti regarded that meaning sounder and confirmed it with the following hadith: “There are one hundred steps in Paradise. The distance between two steps is as much as the distance between the earth and the sky.”

It is stated that such expressions will not give everyone an equal degree in the life of Paradise, that there will be infinitely different degrees according to deeds, goodness, and thawabs, and that the believer is encouraged to do more good deeds in order to attain a higher degree.

Likewise, there are infinitely different levels and degrees of unbelievers and sinners in Hell according to their degree of unbelief and sins.

It is pointed out that the distances between the degrees of Paradise mentioned in the hadith vary from “a distance of one hundred years” to “a distance of five hundred years” according to various narrations. (al-Ayni, Umdatul-Qari fi Sharhi Sahihil-Bukhari, Istanbul 1309, VI, 539; see Prof. Dr. İbrahim Canan, Kütüb-ü Sitte Tercüme ve Şerhi, Vol. 4 al-Waqia, hadith no: 809)

- The interpretation of Badiuzzaman Said Nursi regarding the issue is as follows:  

“An important question raised by a significant person: According to tradition, a five-hundred-year paradise will be given to everyone in Paradise. How can worldly intelligence comprehend this truth?”

The Answer: In this world everyone has his private and temporally limited world as broad as the world, the pillar of which is his life. He makes use of his world through his inner and outer senses. He says to himself, “The sun is my lamp, the stars are my candles.” The existence of other creatures and animate beings in no way negates his ownership of these; on the contrary, they brighten and illumine his world.

In the same way, although on an infinitely higher plane, in addition to the garden of each believer that contains thousands of palaces and houris, there is a private five-hundred-year paradise for everyone, apart from the general Paradise. He will benefit from this paradise and eternity through his senses and feelings, according to the degree of development they have reached. The fact that others share in the general Paradise in no way harms his ownership or benefit, but on the contrary strengthens these, and adorns that vast Paradise.

Man in this world benefits from a garden lasting an hour, a spectacle lasting a day, a country lasting a month and a journey lasting a year, with his mouth, his ear, his eye, his taste and all his other senses. So too, in that realm of eternity, his sense of smell and touch, which in this transient world barely profit from a garden lasting an hour, will benefit as if from a garden lasting a year. The sense of sight and hearing which here barely profit from an excursion lasting a year, will there be able to benefit from a five-hundred-year excursion in a manner fitting that realm, adorned from end to end.” (see Lem'alar, p. 156)

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