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How can Bukhari's hadiths (6529) and (6530) be reconciled, as they mention different proportions of those sent to Hell: "ninety-nine out of every hundred" and "nine hundred ninety-nine out of every thousand"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The first to be called on the Day of Resurrection will be Adam, and he will be told to bring forth the 'contingent of Hell' (ba'th Jahannam) from his descendants. This signifies the distinguishing of the people of Hell. The two mentioned hadiths present a difference in the proportion of those who enter Hell: the first hadith states "ninety-nine out of every hundred" (i.e., 990 out of every thousand), and the second states "nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand" (i.e., 999 out of every thousand).

Scholars have reconciled the two hadiths in several ways: 1. The number does not imply exclusivity; rather, it indicates the small number of believers and the large number of disbelievers. 2. The hadith of Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri includes all of Adam's descendants, while the hadith of Abu Hurairah does not include Gog and Magog. 3. It is possible that the division occurs twice: once for all nations before this Ummah (one out of a thousand), and once for this Ummah (ten out of a thousand). 4. The 'contingent of Hell' (ba'th Jahannam) may include both disbelievers and disobedient Muslims. So, out of every thousand, 999 are disbelievers, and out of every hundred, 99 are disobedient.

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

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