Knowledge Base Article

Heaven After 100 Murders: The Contradiction Between Allah’s Mercy and Justice

Published: October 25, 2026Author: Asif Mohiuddin41 min read

Introduction

A fundamental claim of Islamic morality and the system of judgment in the afterlife is that no matter how grave a person’s crimes may be, the door to forgiveness can remain open if that person sincerely repents to Allah. This possibility of forgiveness is not ruled out even for crimes as grave as murdering multiple people. In Islamic theology, this is presented as a manifestation of Allah’s infinite mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. Yet bringing someone to justice for a crime committed against other human beings is not the same thing as extending forgiveness to the offender. Remorse may change a person’s future conduct, but it does not erase past crimes, the lives lost through murder, or the suffering inflicted on the victims’ families. When the religious promise of forgiveness for grave crimes is assessed against the standards of justice, a fundamental question emerges: when the decision is made to forgive an offender, what weight is given to the rights, suffering, and justice owed to the people harmed by that offender?

This question arises most sharply in the famous hadith about a man who murdered one hundred people, reported in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. According to Muhammad’s account, a man in an earlier age had killed ninety-nine people and then asked whether repentance was still possible for him. A monk first told him that there was no possibility of repentance. On hearing this answer, he killed the monk as well, bringing the total to one hundred. He then consulted another religious scholar, who said that repentance was possible and instructed him to leave for a settlement inhabited by righteous, devout people. The murderer set out for that settlement but died along the way. After his death, the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment disputed his fate. One side cited his remorse and return to Allah; the other pointed out that he had not yet performed any good deed. Ultimately, his fate was decided by measuring the distances to the two settlements, and he was forgiven. In another version, Allah Himself commanded one settlement to draw nearer and the other to move farther away, so that the murderer would be closer to the righteous settlement. ^[1] ^[2]

What is most astonishing about this narrative is not merely the forgiveness granted after one hundred murders, but the absence of the one hundred people killed from the entire judgment process. Each had been deprived of life, their families had lost loved ones, and the murderer’s crimes had inflicted irreparable harm. Yet nowhere does the hadith say that the murderer surrendered to the victims’ heirs, submitted to judicial accountability, paid compensation, or made arrangements to settle the victims’ rights. Nor were the rights of those people raised as an issue in the angels’ dispute. The discussion centered on the murderer’s personal remorse, his intention to return to Allah, and his geographical position at the moment of death. When a system of judgment recounts in detail how a murderer is forgiven but offers no account of justice for the dead, it raises a profound question about the relationship between mercy and justice within that system.

The problem runs deeper because Islamic sources themselves preserve conflicting positions on the murderer’s repentance and the rights of the deceased. Quran 4:93 announces Hell, Allah’s wrath and curse, and a tremendous punishment for deliberately killing a believer. Quran 25:68–70, by contrast, speaks of forgiveness and the transformation of sins into good deeds after grave offenses, including murder, on the conditions of repentance, faith, and righteous action. According to a well-known statement attributed to Ibn Abbas and preserved in Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari, there is no repentance for someone who intentionally murders a believer. Later Sunni interpretations, however, came to favor the acceptance of a murderer’s repentance. Islamic jurisprudence also recognizes that murder involves not only Allah’s right but separate rights belonging to the victim and the victim’s heirs, rights that cannot be discharged through personal remorse alone. The story of the hundred murders is therefore not an isolated miracle story about forgiveness: it exposes deep inconsistencies in Islamic theology concerning crime, repentance, victims’ rights, and punishment in the afterlife. ^[3] ^[4] ^[5] ^[6]

Added to this is the question of Islamic belief in predestination and the determination of one’s fate in the afterlife on the basis of religious obedience. If human lives, actions, and ultimate destinies fall within Allah’s predetermination, then the murderer’s crimes, his remorse, and his eventual forgiveness cannot fall outside that determination. At the same time, religious belief is made a fundamental criterion for the afterlife fate of a person who has never murdered anyone, has helped others, but dies as a nonbeliever. The comparison raises the question of why faith in and obedience to Allah should carry such decisive weight relative to the moral significance of harming or benefiting other human beings. In the hadith of the hundred murders, the offender receives forgiveness, but there is no explanation of how that decision safeguards justice for the dead, accountability proportionate to the crimes, or the moral worth of people irrespective of their religious beliefs. This narrative centered on divine mercy therefore reveals a fundamental crisis in Islamic morality, justice, and the doctrine of salvation.

The Hadith Accounts

The account in this hadith and its conventional interpretation raise a profound moral question. A person who has murdered one hundred people may nevertheless receive forgiveness and enter Paradise by embracing an evidence-free belief in Allah and setting out toward a community of righteous people with the intention of repenting to Him. Yet the narrative does not say how the value of the murdered lives, the damage suffered by their families, or justice for the killings will be addressed. How fair, then, is this disparity to people who have not murdered even one person but whose fate, according to Allah’s predetermination, is Hell, or to those who died as nonbelievers? The principal account and its different versions are presented below. ^[7] ^[8] ^[9]

Riyad as-Salihin
Chapter 1: Miscellaneous
Section 2: Repentance
8/21. Abu Sa’id Sa’d ibn Malik ibn Sinan al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Among those who lived before you (in the age of the Children of Israel) was a man who had killed ninety-nine people. He then inquired about the most learned person on earth and was directed to a Christian monk. He went to him and said that he had killed ninety-nine people, and asked whether there was any possibility of repentance for him. The monk answered, ‘No.’ So he killed him as well, completing a hundred murders. Again, he asked who the most learned person on earth was, and this time he was directed to a scholar. He told the scholar that he had killed one hundred people and asked whether he could repent. The scholar replied: ‘Yes! Who could stand between him and repentance? Go to such-and-such a land, where there are people who worship Allah. Worship Allah with them, and do not return to your own land, for it is an evil land.’
So the man set off toward that land. When he had reached the middle of his journey, death overtook him. Both the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment came to take his soul, and they began to dispute over him. The angels of mercy said, ‘He came in repentance, turning wholeheartedly toward Allah.’ The angels of punishment said, ‘He has not done any good deed yet’ (and is therefore deserving of punishment). At that point an angel appeared in human form, and they appointed him to arbitrate. He ruled: ‘Measure the distance between the two lands. Whichever one he is nearer to, count him among its people.’ They measured the distances and found that he was closer to the good land he had intended to reach. Thus the angels of mercy took his soul.’” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Another version in the Sahih collections states: “By measurement he was found to be one handspan closer to the land of the righteous, so he was counted among them.”
Another version reads: “Allah commanded the land from which he had come to move away and commanded the land of the righteous to draw nearer. Then He said, ‘Measure the distance between the two.’ They found him one handspan closer to the righteous land, and so he was forgiven.’”
Another narration says: “He moved a little closer to the good land by dragging himself forward on his chest.” (1)
(1) Sahih al-Bukhari 3470; Muslim 2766; Ibn Majah 2626; Ahmad 10770, 11290.
Hadith grading: Sahih (authentic).

Sahih Muslim (Islamic Foundation edition)
51: Repentance
Section 8: The repentance of a murderer may be accepted by Allah, even if he has committed many murders
6752. Muhammad ibn al-Muthanna and Muhammad ibn Bashshar … narrated from Abu Sa’id al-Khudri that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Among those who came before you was a man who had murdered ninety-nine people. He asked who the most learned man on earth was, and he was directed to a monk. He approached him and said that he had killed ninety-nine people; could he still repent? The monk replied, ‘No.’ So he killed the monk as well, bringing the number to one hundred.
Then he again asked who the most learned person on earth was, and was directed to a scholar. He told the scholar he had killed one hundred people and asked whether repentance was possible. The scholar said, ‘Yes. Who can prevent you from repenting? Go to a certain land where some people worship Allah. Worship Allah with them, and never return to your own land, for it is an evil place.’ The man then began his journey. When he was halfway there, death overtook him.
The angels of mercy and the angels of punishment disputed his case. The angels of mercy said, ‘He came toward Allah with a heart full of repentance.’ The angels of punishment said, ‘He has never performed a single good deed.’ An angel in human form appeared, and they appointed him as arbitrator.
He said, ‘Measure the distances to the two lands. Count him among the people of whichever land he is closer to.’ They measured and found that he was closer to the land he had intended to reach, so the angels of mercy took his soul. Qatadah said that al-Hasan reported: ‘We were told that when death came to him, he dragged himself forward on his chest.’”
Hadith grading: Sahih (authentic).
Narrator: Abu Sa’id al-Khudri.

Sahih Muslim (Islamic Foundation edition)
51: Repentance
Section 8: The repentance of a murderer may be accepted by Allah, even if he has committed many murders
6753. Ubaydullah ibn Mu’adh al-Anbari … narrated from Abu Sa’id al-Khudri that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “A man killed ninety-nine people and began asking whether repentance was possible for him. Eventually he came to a monk and asked him. The monk said, ‘There is no repentance for you,’ so he killed the monk. He then continued asking others. Eventually he left one settlement for another inhabited by righteous people. On the road death overtook him. He dragged himself forward on his chest and then died. The angels of mercy and the angels of punishment disputed over him. It was found that he was one handspan closer to the settlement of the righteous, so he was counted among its people.”
Hadith grading: Sahih (authentic).
Narrator: Abu Sa’id al-Khudri.

Preachers’ Sermons: A Lesson in Morality or a Lesson in Obedience?

This sermon by Mizanur Rahman Azhari is an example of the common religious presentation of the story of the hundred murders. Such discussions emphasize the murderer’s repentance, Allah’s forgiveness, and the importance of turning away from sin. Yet when the murderer’s forgiveness is treated as the ultimate moral lesson, the indispensable question of the rights of the one hundred people he killed is pushed aside. The offender’s remorse may transform his own condition, but that transformation is not equivalent to adjudicating the murders or settling the victims’ claims. It is in this distinction between religious mercy and actual justice that the story’s social and moral implications become apparent.

Where Is Justice for the One Hundred Murder Victims?

The most serious moral problem with the hadith about the forgiveness of the man who murdered one hundred people is that, although Allah’s mercy and forgiveness toward the killer dominate the entire narrative, the rights of the dead, the suffering of their families, and the justice owed to them are completely absent. The man murdered ninety-nine people, then killed a monk who told him repentance was impossible, bringing the number to one hundred. His victims were not merely a tally of one hundred: they were one hundred separate human beings, each with a life, family, relationships, future, and right to live. Their killings deprived countless people of loved ones, injured families, and destroyed one hundred lives forever. Yet none of these people is represented in the story’s judgment. There is no answer to how the wrongs done to them would be judged, what claims their families could make, or whether the killer had fulfilled any duty toward them. The entire narrative instead centers on the murderer: whether he felt remorse, which settlement he set out to reach, and how close he was to it at the time of his death.

In the hadith, the angels of mercy argue on the murderer’s behalf because he sincerely turned toward Allah. The angels of punishment counter that he had not yet done any good deed. Notably, at no point in this dispute are the victims’ rights presented as a determining consideration. The account says nothing about whether the murderer surrendered to the victims’ families, sought their forgiveness, arranged compensation, or faced judicial accountability for his crimes. His fate is ultimately determined by measuring the distance between two settlements. In another version, Allah Himself orders one settlement to draw nearer and the other to move away, resulting in the murderer’s forgiveness. Thus, within the judgment process described, his last-minute change of heart and geographical position prove more consequential than the deaths of one hundred people.

In any just system of judgment, an offender’s remorse may matter, but remorse does not erase the damage actually caused. Even sincere repentance cannot bring the murdered back to life. A victim’s child does not regain a father or mother, a family does not regain its loved one, and the damage of a crime does not disappear from history. The offender’s rehabilitation, the offender’s forgiveness, and justice for the victim are therefore three separate matters. Before deciding to forgive someone, a fundamental question of justice is how the rights of those harmed by that person have been addressed. Yet the hadith completes the account of the murderer’s forgiveness without explaining how justice was done for the one hundred victims. His release from punishment in the afterlife is described in detail, whereas no comparable process of justice for those he killed is shown.

Islamic jurisprudence itself does not regard a murderer’s repentance and the victims’ rights as the same thing. Once it is acknowledged that murder involves separate rights belonging to the deceased and the heirs, the question of where those rights are settled in the account of the hundred murders becomes unavoidable. The murderer is forgiven, but there is no account of justice having been administered for the people he killed. The power to forgive is not the same as proof that justice has been done. This distinction becomes still clearer when the rights recognized within Islamic jurisprudence are examined.

Three Rights in a Case of Murder: What Is Owed to the One Hundred Victims?

The story of the forgiveness of the man who murdered one hundred people contains a serious inconsistency with the Islamic jurisprudential rules concerning murder. Under Islamic law, murder is not merely a sin against Allah; it also involves the rights of the deceased and their heirs. A murderer does not automatically extinguish the victim’s rights simply by repenting to Allah. Ibn al-Qayyim explicitly discusses this in his book Al-Jawab al-Kafi. According to him, murder involves three separate rights: Allah’s right, the victim’s right, and the rights of the victim’s heirs. Sincere repentance may lead to the forgiveness of Allah’s right, but to settle the heirs’ rights the murderer must surrender to them, enabling them to choose retaliatory punishment (qisas), blood money, or pardon. The victim’s own right also remains outstanding; Ibn al-Qayyim explains that Allah will settle it through compensation in the hereafter. ^[10]

والتحقيق في المسألة أن القتل يتعلق به ثلاثة حقوق: حق لله وحق للمقتول، وحق للولي، فإذا سلم القاتل نفسه طوعا واختيارا إلى الولي ندما على ما فعل، وخوفا من الله، وتوبة نصوحا، سقط حق الله بالتوبة، وحق الولي بالاستيفاء أو الصلح أو العفو، وبقي حق المقتول يعوضه الله عنه يوم القيامة عن عبده التائب المحسن، ويصلح بينه وبينه، فلا يبطل حق هذا، ولا تبطل توبة هذا.

English translation: The correct understanding of this question is that three rights are attached to murder: the right of Allah, the right of the person killed, and the right of the victim’s guardian or heir. If the murderer, remorseful for what he has done, fearing Allah, and sincerely repentant, voluntarily surrenders himself to the victim’s guardian, Allah’s right is discharged through repentance, while the guardian’s right is discharged through the enforcement of retaliation, a settlement, or pardon. The victim’s right remains, however. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will compensate the victim on behalf of His repentant, righteous servant and reconcile them. Thus neither the victim’s right nor the murderer’s repentance is nullified.

What matters in Ibn al-Qayyim’s explanation is that the three rights are resolved by three different processes. Allah’s right may be forgiven; the heirs’ rights are settled through qisas, settlement, or pardon; and the victim’s right remains a separate claim in the afterlife. But the hadith about the hundred murders describes no resolution of the second or third rights. The only detailed adjudication concerns the murderer’s repentance, the destination of his journey, and which settlement was nearer when he died. In other words, while the decision to forgive the offender is fully described, no judicial process is shown for the separate claims of those he killed.

This becomes even more significant in IslamQA Fatwa 147017. Quoting Ibn al-Qayyim, the fatwa explicitly states that if an intentional murderer conceals his crime and fails to inform the victim’s heirs, the rights of both the heirs and the victim remain outstanding against him. Where the rights of another person have been violated, remorse alone is insufficient: the right must be restored or the person concerned must be asked to pardon the offender. The murderer must notify the victim’s heirs so that they can choose qisas, blood money, or forgiveness. The offender’s private religious remorse is therefore not treated as identical to the justice owed to those harmed by his crime. ^[11]

فإذا أخفى القاتل جريمته، ولم يخبر أولياء المقتول، فقد بقي عليه حق الأولياء وحق القتيل.

ومن شروط التوبة إذا كان الذنب متعلقا بالغير: رد الحق إليه، أو التحلل منه، فيلزم القاتل أن يخبر أولياء المقتول ليعفوا، أو يقتصوا، أو يطلبوا الدية.

English translation: If the murderer conceals his crime and does not inform the victim’s heirs, the rights of the heirs and of the person killed remain outstanding against him.

One of the conditions of repentance when a sin involves the rights of someone else is to restore that person’s right or obtain a release from the claim. Accordingly, the murderer must inform the victim’s heirs so that they may pardon him, exact retaliation, or demand blood money.

The ethical consequences of this explanation are significant. If Allah accepts a murderer’s repentance while the victim’s rights remain outstanding, Islamic sources themselves establish that forgiveness and justice are two distinct processes. Ibn al-Qayyim says that Allah will satisfy the victim’s claim in the afterlife. That creates a mechanism by which the murderer may be forgiven without personally discharging that duty. The murderer committed the crime, but the task of satisfying the person he killed is ultimately assumed by another authority. Having the power to compensate someone is not the same as holding the offender accountable for his own actions. This is precisely where a profound moral inconsistency emerges between recognizing the victim’s rights and releasing the murderer from liability.

The possibility of rewarding a murdered person in the hereafter does not restore that person’s lost earthly life. Nor does it return to the family the relationship that was destroyed or undo the prolonged absence and suffering caused by the crime. And transferring full responsibility for the murderer’s offense to someone else does not make the killing just. The very fact that jurisprudence distinguishes three rights means that repentance to Allah cannot be called full redress for a crime committed against human beings. This rule exposes the unaddressed part of the hadith of the hundred murders: although the murderer’s fate was determined, how the rights of his one hundred victims were resolved remains unknown.

No Complete Repentance Without Surrender for Qisas: An Islamweb Fatwa and the Forgiveness of the Hundredfold Murderer

The legal position that the deceased and the heirs hold separate rights is not merely an abstract discussion in jurisprudential books. Islamweb Fatwa 101033 also lays out its practical requirements. Published on 10 November 2007, the fatwa responds to a question about a Muslim who committed murder, fled to escape prosecution, and later repented to Allah: would his repentance be accepted, and would he be punished in the hereafter? In its answer, Islamweb acknowledges scholarly disagreement about the acceptance of the intentional murderer’s repentance and favors the opinion that repentance may be accepted. Yet it also insists that the murderer must give the victim’s heirs the opportunity to settle their claims. The completion of repentance thus necessarily involves not merely the offender’s private remorse but the rights of those affected by the crime. ^[12]

The fatwa states that the victim’s own right cannot be fully satisfied in this world. But it does not permit the murderer to evade the legal claims of the victim’s heirs on that account. For repentance to be complete, he must surrender to them so that they can decide on qisas, pardon, or a settlement. The wording of the fatwa makes clear the distinction between hoping for forgiveness in the afterlife and escaping judgment for one’s crime on earth. Even the murderer’s own life is subject to the legal decision of the victim’s heirs in this framework. ^[13]

ولما كان حق القتيل لا يمكن الوفاء به في الدنيا، فإن من تمام توبته أن يسلم نفسه إلى أولياء المقتول ليقتصوا أو يعفوا أو يصالحوا.

English translation: Since the right of the person killed cannot be fully discharged in this world, part of the completion of the murderer’s repentance is that he surrender himself to the victim’s heirs so that they may exact retaliation, pardon him, or agree to a settlement.

Islamweb further concludes that an intentional murderer who does not surrender himself so that qisas can be carried out or the victim’s heirs can choose to pardon him cannot be regarded as having completed his repentance. The fatwa also says that it cannot be stated with certainty whether such a person will be punished in the hereafter; this is left to Allah’s will. The fatwa therefore operates on two levels. First, the victim’s heirs retain their legal rights against the murderer. Second, even without the settlement of those rights, the murderer’s fate in the afterlife is ultimately left to Allah’s will. This second position creates a clear separation between what is legally owed to the victim and the murderer’s eventual religious deliverance.

Now consider the fate of the murderer in the hadith. The scholar’s only practical instruction was to leave the sinful settlement for a settlement of worshippers. The instruction said nothing about surrendering to the victims’ families, facing qisas, or asking the families to pardon him. The man died before reaching the settlement. At that point the angels disputed his fate, but no claim by the victims’ heirs was raised for adjudication. The issue is not simply that the killer managed to escape justice during his lifetime: even at the end of the account, no process for settling the victims’ claims is given as a ground for his forgiveness. ^[14]

The angels of mercy argued that the murderer had repented and returned to Allah. The angels of punishment argued that he had done no good deed. Neither argument addressed redress for the wrongs done to the victims. Yet the condition of surrender attached to complete repentance in Islamweb’s fatwa directly concerns the rights of the victims’ heirs. This is absent from the hadith’s judgment narrative, which instead concerns the offender’s religious direction and his position on his final journey. Thus accountability for a crime and receiving Allah’s forgiveness cannot be treated as the same judgment. ^[15]

فَقَالَتْ مَلاَئِكَةُ الرَّحْمَةِ جَاءَ تَائِبًا مُقْبِلاً بِقَلْبِهِ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَقَالَتْ مَلاَئِكَةُ الْعَذَابِ إِنَّهُ لَمْ يَعْمَلْ خَيْرًا قَطُّ

English translation: The angels of mercy said, “He came in repentance, turning to Allah with his heart.” The angels of punishment said, “He has never done any good deed at all.”

Islamweb’s fatwa concerns the legal obligations of a Muslim murderer, whereas the hadith’s narrative is set in an age before Muhammad; the specific legal procedures in the two cases are therefore not claimed to be identical. But the central question in the comparison is not whether the legal procedures were historically the same: it is whether responsibility for taking human lives is morally identical to religious forgiveness of the offender. Once later Islamic jurisprudence recognizes the heirs’ rights separately, there is no basis for presenting the hundred-murderer story as a complete example of justice. The judgment in the hadith determines the killer’s fate in the afterlife, but says nothing about satisfying the rights of those he murdered.

The deceased person’s own right presents a deeper question still. Islamweb acknowledges that this right cannot be fully discharged on earth. Murder destroys a life, relationships, and a future that cannot be restored. A promise of compensation in the hereafter may offer a theological resolution of the victim’s position, but it does not erase the murderer’s separate culpability. If the murderer can be forgiven while others bear the irreparable consequences of his crime, the decision to forgive cannot, by itself, be called complete justice.

Islamweb Fatwa 101033 is therefore especially important in comparison with the story of the hundred murders. On one side, surrender by the murderer and the rights of the victim’s heirs are described as conditions for the completion of repentance. On the other, the hadith treats the murderer’s religious return and the measurement of distance as decisive in his forgiveness. There is no account of any settlement of the victims’ claims. Islamic jurisprudence’s own rules therefore provide grounds for rejecting the idea that remorse alone can serve as a complete substitute for justice.

Turning the Sin of Murder into Good Deeds: Quranic Forgiveness and the Conflict with Justice

Another Quranic provision makes the moral problem in the hundred-murderer narrative even deeper. In Surah al-Furqan, verses 68–70, Allah declares severe punishment for unlawful killing, associating partners with Him, and adultery. The passage speaks of multiplied punishment and abiding in humiliation on the Day of Resurrection for such offenses. Yet in the following verse it promises, on the conditions of repentance, faith, and righteous deeds, to turn the offender’s sins into good deeds. It does not speak merely of forgiving wrongdoing: it uses the language of transforming sins into virtues. How is the religious accounting for an act that destroyed a human life to be changed, and what becomes of the murdered person’s rights when that happens? This is a serious ethical question. ^[16]

سورة الفرقان: ٦٨–٧٠

وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَدْعُونَ مَعَ اللَّهِ إِلَٰهًا آخَرَ وَلَا يَقْتُلُونَ النَّفْسَ الَّتِي حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا يَزْنُونَ ۚ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ يَلْقَ أَثَامًا ﴿٦٨﴾

يُضَاعَفْ لَهُ الْعَذَابُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ وَيَخْلُدْ فِيهِ مُهَانًا ﴿٦٩﴾

إِلَّا مَنْ تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُولَٰئِكَ يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا ﴿٧٠﴾

English translation:

68. And those who do not invoke another deity alongside Allah, nor kill the life that Allah has made sacred except with due right, nor commit adultery. Whoever does these things will face the consequences of sin.

69. Their punishment will be multiplied on the Day of Resurrection, and they will abide there forever in humiliation.

70. Except those who repent, believe, and do righteous deeds. For them, Allah will change their evil deeds into good deeds. And Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

In commenting on these verses, Ibn Kathir explicitly concludes that a murderer’s repentance can be accepted. He discusses Quran 4:93, which prescribes Hell, Allah’s wrath, and His curse for the intentional killing of a believer, and explains that, in light of the repentance provision in Surah al-Furqan, the threatened punishment applies to the murderer who does not repent. More importantly, Ibn Kathir invokes the very hadith about the man who murdered one hundred people and whose repentance Allah accepted. Thus the story of the forgiven hundredfold murderer and the Quranic provision for transforming sins into good deeds belong to the same theological discussion. This connection is not invented by an outside critic: Ibn Kathir himself discusses these sources together. ^[17]

Ibn Kathir records two interpretations of transforming sins into good deeds. In the first, repentance leads a person to abandon former wrongdoing and begin performing good deeds: the person’s behavior changes. The second interpretation is more significant. It says that through sincere repentance, past sins themselves are transformed into good deeds and may be counted as good deeds in the person’s record on the Day of Resurrection. This is not merely about correcting future conduct; it concerns changing the accounting of past offenses in the afterlife. Ibn Kathir states: ^[18]

والقول الثاني: أن تلك السيئات الماضية تنقلب بنفس التوبة النصوح حسنات، وما ذاك إلا أنه كلما تذكر ما مضى ندم واسترجع واستغفر، فينقلب الذنب طاعة بهذا الاعتبار. فيوم القيامة وإن وجده مكتوبا عليه لكنه لا يضره وينقلب حسنة في صحيفته، كما ثبتت السنة بذلك، وصحت به الآثار المروية عن السلف.

English translation: The second opinion is that those past evil deeds become good deeds through sincere repentance itself. This is because whenever the person recalls what happened, he regrets it, returns to Allah, and seeks forgiveness; in this sense the sin becomes an act of obedience. On the Day of Resurrection, even if he finds the sin written against him, it will not harm him; rather, it will turn into a good deed in his record. This is established by the Sunnah and by authentic reports transmitted from the early generations.

This interpretation makes the ethical problem of the hundredfold murderer still clearer. When one person takes another person’s life, the real consequences of that act are irreversible. The deceased does not return to life; a child does not regain a murdered father, nor does a family regain a lost loved one. Yet in the religious accounting of salvation, the offender’s past sins may be forgiven and, according to a recognized interpretation of the Quran, even transformed into good deeds. Remorse after a murder may lead to better behavior in the future, but remorse does not turn the past murder into a good act. The ethical character of killing does not change according to the killer’s subsequent feelings. The notion that the killer’s offense can become part of his own reward in the afterlife while the victim’s injury remains unchanged creates a profound imbalance between the interests of offender and victim.

Surah al-Furqan 25:70 also makes righteous deeds a condition alongside repentance and faith. By contrast, in the hadith of the hundred murders, the angels of punishment themselves say that the man has not yet performed any good deed; nevertheless, he is forgiven because of his intention to repent and his journey toward the righteous settlement. The hadith therefore does not explicitly state that its murderer fulfilled every condition of that Quranic verse. Both sources, however, establish a broader theological principle: the consequences of grave crimes in the afterlife can be changed by an offender’s repentance and Allah’s forgiveness. Neither explains clearly how justice for the murdered was fulfilled, how their independent rights were protected, or how those rights were related to the killer’s forgiveness.

The essential moral distinction is between offering an offender the opportunity to reform and transforming the offender’s past crimes into good deeds. Rehabilitation may give a person an opportunity not to offend again. But the killing of one hundred people cannot be reduced to a stage in the murderer’s private spiritual improvement. The central questions of justice must be the rights of the dead, the offender’s responsibility, and redress for the actual harm caused. In both Surah al-Furqan’s provision for forgiveness and transformation of sins and the story of the hundredfold murderer’s salvation, it is the offender’s return to Allah that occupies the central position. As a result, justice for crimes against human beings is subordinated to religious obedience and forgiveness.

Ibn Abbas: No Repentance for an Intentional Murderer—Then Why Was the Hundredfold Murderer Forgiven?

Another important position preserved in early Islamic sources directly conflicts with the hadith about the forgiveness of the murderer of one hundred people. According to Ibn Abbas, a companion of Muhammad and an influential Quranic exegete, repentance is not accepted from someone who intentionally kills a believer. This is not the private opinion of an obscure later preacher: it is recorded in Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari. More importantly, Ibn Abbas reached this conclusion by explaining the relationship between two Quranic passages. Surah al-Furqan 25:68–70 promises forgiveness and the transformation of sins into good deeds after murder, idolatry, and adultery, on the conditions of repentance, faith, and righteous conduct. Surah al-Nisa 4:93, on the other hand, announces Hell, Allah’s wrath and curse, and a tremendous punishment for intentionally murdering a believer. Ibn Abbas did not regard these pronouncements as equally operative: in his interpretation, the later verse revealed in Medina abrogated the earlier Meccan ruling. ^[19] ^[3] ^[4]

قُلْتُ لِابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ أَلِمَنْ قَتَلَ مُؤْمِنًا مُتَعَمِّدًا مِنْ تَوْبَةٍ قَالَ لاَ

English translation: Sa’id ibn Jubayr said: I asked Ibn Abbas, “Is there repentance for someone who deliberately kills a believer?” He answered, “No.”

In this narration in Sahih Muslim, Sa’id ibn Jubayr then drew Ibn Abbas’s attention to the passage in Surah al-Furqan that permits repentance after grave sins, including murder, and speaks of turning sins into good deeds. Ibn Abbas replied that it had been revealed in Mecca, while the later provision of Surah al-Nisa 4:93, revealed in Medina, had abrogated it. According to his position, the general promise of forgiveness in Surah al-Furqan therefore could not be applied to deliberate murder of a believer. The availability of repentance for murder depends here not merely on the sincerity of the offender’s remorse but also on which Quranic verse is treated as the final ruling. The opportunity for forgiveness allowed for a crime in one verse is denied for that crime on the basis of another.

Ibn Abbas’s position is expressed still more specifically in Sahih Muslim 3023d. There he discusses the polytheists of Mecca who had practiced idolatry, murder, and adultery before embracing Islam and asked whether forgiveness was possible for them. According to his interpretation, the repentance provision of Surah al-Furqan had been revealed in connection with their conversion to Islam. But there is no repentance for someone who embraces Islam, understands its teachings, and subsequently commits intentional murder. Thus Ibn Abbas distinguished between accepting Islam with previous crimes in one’s past and deliberately committing murder after becoming Muslim. ^[20]

فَأَمَّا مَنْ دَخَلَ فِي الإِسْلاَمِ وَعَقَلَهُ ثُمَّ قَتَلَ فَلاَ تَوْبَةَ لَهُ

English translation: But as for one who enters Islam, understands it, and then commits murder, there is no repentance for him.

The same position appears in Sahih al-Bukhari 4764. When Sa’id ibn Jubayr questioned Ibn Abbas about the punishment of Hell prescribed for the deliberate murderer in Surah al-Nisa, he replied that the murderer has no repentance. When asked about the forgiveness verse in Surah al-Furqan, he identified its context as the polytheists of the pre-Islamic period. Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim thus preserve, from the same companion, a strict interpretation denying repentance to someone who deliberately murders a believer. This is direct evidence of an early interpretive disagreement within Islamic sources about punishment for murder. ^[21]

Later Sunni theological interpretation did not adopt this strict position attributed to Ibn Abbas. In his Sharh Sahih Muslim, Imam al-Nawawi acknowledges that “there is no repentance for an intentional murderer” is the well-known position of Ibn Abbas. He also records another position attributed to him that permits repentance and forgiveness. Al-Nawawi presents the second position as the view accepted by Sunni scholars. He explains the early statements rejecting a murderer’s repentance as stern warnings intended to convey the gravity of murder and deter people from killing. He also argues that although Surah al-Nisa 4:93 announces Hell as the punishment deserved by a murderer, it does not necessarily follow that the punishment must be imposed in every case. ^[22]

هَذَا هُوَ الْمَشْهُورُ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا، وَرُوِيَ عَنْهُ أَنَّ لَهُ تَوْبَةً وَجَوَازُ الْمَغْفِرَةِ لَهُ

English translation: This is the well-known position attributed to Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both. But it has also been reported from him that the murderer may repent and that forgiveness is possible for him.

The disagreement here extends beyond the linguistic interpretation of a verse: it reaches the fundamental principles of crime, remorse, punishment, and forgiveness. In Ibn Abbas’s well-known position, deliberately killing a believer is so grave an offense that repentance is unavailable. In later mainstream Sunni interpretation, repentance and forgiveness are available for that same offense. The hadith of the hundred murders provides a particularly dramatic example of the second principle: a man is forgiven after killing one hundred people because he sets out for a righteous settlement. Under Ibn Abbas’s interpretation, however, a single deliberate killing of a believer suffices to rule out repentance. The hadith does not specify the religion of the one hundred victims, so there is no basis for asserting that Ibn Abbas’s rule concerning the murder of believers directly applied to every killing in that story. Nevertheless, the sources plainly preserve a profound interpretive conflict over whether forgiveness for deliberate murder is possible at all.

In attempting to reconcile this dispute, later scholars have sometimes treated Ibn Abbas’s statement as a stern warning and sometimes described the Quran’s threat of Hell as a punishment the murderer deserves but which Allah may choose not to impose. Yet even with those explanations, a moral question remains. Once Allah has pronounced Hell, wrath, and a curse for intentional murder, if the actual enforcement of that punishment ultimately depends on Allah’s forgiveness, where is the guarantee of justice for the victim? The possibility of repentance for the murderer and the victim’s right to justice are distinct questions. The hundred-murderer story answers the first but does not show the second being resolved. The contrast between Ibn Abbas’s severe position and the later forgiveness-centered interpretation makes this problem of justice more apparent.

Moral Hazard: Waiving Responsibility Through Remorse

The story of the hundredfold murderer’s forgiveness does more than offer the possibility of repentance after a crime. It depicts a religious system of judgment in which the consequences of an appalling crime may ultimately be altered by a change in the offender’s personal religious condition. The crime is committed against other human beings, yet the determining factor in deliverance becomes the desire to return to Allah. This creates a moral hazard. The harm caused by murder is irreversible, but the killer’s liability in the hereafter can be changed by a decision to forgive. The offender’s rehabilitation can certainly matter to his future behavior. But where the victims’ rights are not at the center of judgment and the offender’s prospect of deliverance takes priority, accountability and the need to make redress may be pushed into a secondary position.

It is important to distinguish between turning away from further wrongdoing and being released from responsibility for wrongdoing already committed. Even if a man who has murdered one hundred people feels genuine remorse, that remorse does not determine the value of the lost lives or the claims of their families. In the hadith, the last-minute religious return is given such weight that forgiveness becomes possible after one hundred murders, even though no settlement of the victims’ claims is described. Establishing that such a message actually encourages people to commit crimes would require separate social evidence. But no such evidence is needed to assess the moral priorities of the narrative itself: the route to the offender’s salvation is clear, while the path to justice for the victims remains unstated. That is the fundamental structure of the moral hazard.

Predestination: Judging Predetermined Crimes, Repentance, and Destiny

The conflict deepens when this judgment narrative is considered alongside belief in predestination. Under the conventional Islamic doctrine of predestination, human lives, deeds, lifespans, and final destinies are known and decreed by Allah. Within this framework, the hundredfold murderer’s crimes, his subsequent search for repentance, his journey toward the settlement of the righteous, and his forgiveness all fall under ultimate predetermination. Meanwhile, there are people who never committed a single murder but died as nonbelievers and for whom Hell is declared as their fate. The question is where the just proportion lies, within the same predetermined order, between forgiveness after appalling crimes on one side and punishment for disbelief on the other. Although the offender’s remorse becomes crucial in his favor, his wrongdoing against innocent human beings does not occupy the central place in the determination of his fate. ^[23]

The claim that Allah merely knew what would happen in advance is not the same as the claim that He predetermined those events. Appealing to foreknowledge does not answer the central question if it is used to deny responsibility for predetermination. In the story of the hundred murders, Allah’s will is not merely some distant knowledge. In one narration, He directly commands two settlements to draw nearer or move farther away, thereby changing the very geographical conditions used in the judgment that leads to forgiveness. Divine authority is thus active in the judgment process, the conditions of the event, and the offender’s ultimate fate. Yet no comparable resolution is given of the questions about the offender’s independent moral responsibility and justice for the dead. This conflict between predetermined events and just accountability is a concrete example of the broader problem posed by Islamic predestination.

The Angels’ Dispute and the Absence of a Coherent Principle of Justice

The dispute between the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment is another significant part of this narrative. One side emphasizes the murderer’s repentance and return to Allah; the other says that he performed no good deeds. Eventually an angel in human form intervenes and recommends settling the matter through a measurement of distances. The question is why a crime that ended one hundred lives should be judged not by the victims’ rights or the magnitude of the harm, but by the relative distance between two settlements. More importantly, in another version Allah Himself commands the land to draw closer or move farther away. The very distance used as the criterion can therefore be altered at the judge’s will. Behind the measurement stands not an independent moral standard, but the decision of authority.

This also suggests that Allah’s rules offer no clear, determinate definition of right and wrong or of the punishment for each offense, making it necessary for angels to argue like lawyers in a human courtroom. The outcome is that the servant receives punishment or mercy according to which side prevails in the dispute. These are strikingly human scenarios, suggesting that such stories were fashioned on the model of human behavior and institutions. Angels who operate under Allah’s laws and commands should have no need to argue like opposing attorneys in a human court. Still more strikingly, throughout the dispute, the people murdered in the one hundred killings appear in neither side’s arguments. Justice is reduced to a contest over the killer’s remorse and his location.

The Dominance of Obedience over Morality

This hadith conveys a larger structural message: faith in Allah, remorse, and obedience take such precedence in determining the consequences of horrific crimes against human beings in the afterlife that the harm to the victims and their claims to justice are overshadowed. A man murdered one hundred people, yet the decision to deliver him rests on whether he turned toward Allah in his final moments. Making the offender’s religious position central in this way subordinates human justice to salvation based on obedience to God. If an evidence-free belief and an intention to repent can open the path to Paradise even after one hundred murders, while the story of forgiveness is complete without any settlement of the victims’ rights, the judgment of crime becomes conflated with an exercise of power. Authority determines who will be forgiven and by whom, while the independent demands for justice of the dead are not accorded equal weight. An assessment of the value of human life and human rights must reckon not only with an offender’s relationship to God but also with his duties toward those he harmed. Yet those duties are absent from the story’s final outcome.

Conclusion

The hadith of the forgiveness of the man who murdered one hundred people is ordinarily presented in Islamic religious discourse as evidence of Allah’s boundless mercy and the importance of repentance. But its moral significance extends far beyond the offender’s remorse and forgiveness. At its center are one hundred killings, one hundred dead human beings, and the questions of their rights and justice. After murdering ninety-nine people, the man killed yet another monk. He then searched for a chance to repent, set off toward a righteous settlement, and died on the way. The angels of mercy argued for him, the angels of punishment objected, and eventually the decision to forgive him was made by measuring the distance between settlements. But nowhere in this narrative do the one hundred victims have any presence in the proceedings. No account is given of redress for the wrongs done to them, the families’ claims, compensation, or the settlement of the murderer’s liability. The narrative that ends in mercy for the murderer leaves justice for those he killed unaddressed.

This absence is especially serious because Islamic jurisprudence itself recognizes three separate rights arising from murder: Allah’s right, the victim’s right, and the rights of the victim’s heirs. Ibn al-Qayyim’s discussion and fatwas from IslamQA and Islamweb acknowledge the need to settle the heirs’ rights through surrender, qisas, blood money, or pardon. Under this framework, the murderer’s personal repentance cannot be equivalent to satisfying the rights of those harmed by his crime. Yet in the hadith of the hundred murders, his remorse and intention to change his religious environment become the principal grounds for forgiveness in the afterlife. The account says nothing of whether the families demanded qisas, whether they pardoned him, or how the victims’ own rights were fulfilled. Nor does the later jurisprudential proposal that Allah will compensate the victims erase the ethical difference between the murderer’s personal responsibility and the victims’ irreparable loss. There is no rational basis for assuming that an act of taking a human life has been resolved with complete justice simply because the killer repents and another authority provides compensation.

The Quran’s pronouncements on forgiveness and punishment complicate this inconsistency further. Surah al-Nisa 4:93 announces Hell, divine wrath, a curse, and severe punishment for intentionally murdering a believer. Surah al-Furqan 25:68–70 also offers forgiveness through repentance after grave offenses, including murder, and speaks of turning sins into good deeds. In Ibn Abbas’s well-known interpretation, the repentance of someone who deliberately murders a believer is unacceptable; later Sunni interpretation, however, permits forgiveness through repentance. Ibn Kathir’s commentary records an interpretation in which even past sins are converted into good deeds in one’s record for the afterlife. Murder is therefore treated, within the same religious framework, as an offense deserving the gravest punishment while also being an offense for which that punishment can be waived, with the possibility of converting sin into virtue under specified religious conditions. Yet changing the accounting of wrongdoing in the murderer’s record does nothing to change the lives lost or the harm suffered by the victims’ families. The offender’s eventual benefit in the afterlife does not automatically constitute justice for the people harmed.

The hadith’s method of judgment presents a separate problem. Neither the severity of the murders, nor the victims’ rights, nor redress for the damage was decisive in the dispute between the angels of mercy and punishment; the discussion concerned the murderer’s intention to repent and whether he had performed good deeds. The matter was then decided by measuring the distances between two settlements. In another version, Allah Himself ordered the land to shift, causing the murderer to be counted closer to the good settlement. When the authority conducting the judgment can also change the geographical conditions used in measuring the outcome, distance cannot represent an independent moral standard. Using such a measurement as the ultimate basis of decision, while leaving aside the actual damage and the victims’ rights in one hundred murders, is not a rational procedure of justice. It is a judgment narrative in which the offender’s religious orientation and desire for forgiveness overshadow the moral gravity of the killings he committed.

The Islamic belief in predestination adds another fundamental question. If Allah predetermined human deeds, lifespans, and final destinies, then the one hundred murders, the killer’s subsequent remorse, and his forgiveness all belong to that predetermined system. How much independent moral agency, then, is assigned to the offender for his crimes and repentance, and how just is the punishment of others within the same predetermined order? The contrast is especially stark between a person who receives forgiveness after one hundred murders and someone who faces punishment in the afterlife for disbelief without having murdered anyone. It reveals a profound disparity in the standards of moral evaluation. If religious belief, obedience, and repentance outweigh the preservation of human life, the avoidance of harm, and the fulfillment of human responsibilities in determining final destiny, it becomes difficult to describe that system as centered on justice toward human beings.

Recognizing an offender’s capacity for remorse and allowing the possibility of future reform can have moral value. But remorse does not render past offenses innocent; forgiveness does not make the rights of the murdered irrelevant; and a claim of divine mercy does not itself establish that justice has been done. This is the fundamental problem in the story of the hundred murders. The lives and rights of the one hundred victims are not its central concern. Its focus is the murderer’s return to Allah and the mercy granted to him. Islamic theology places side by side severe punishment for murder, forgiveness through repentance, independent rights of the victim, the transformation of sins into good deeds, and predestined outcomes without establishing a coherent principle of justice among them. The decision to forgive the killer is described, but there is no proof that the justice owed to the dead was carried out. Mercy shown to a man who murdered one hundred people cannot be called a triumph of justice when the very account of that mercy leaves the claims of the one hundred people he killed unaddressed.

References

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Genre: Semi-Academic Skeptical Analysis

Epistemic Position: Scientific Skepticism and Secular Humanist Ethics

This article belongs to the skeptical-rationalist analytical tradition of Shongshoy.com.

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