(99) باب فِي فَضْلِ التَّوْبَةِ وَالاِسْتِغْفَارِ وَمَا ذُكِرَ مِنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ لِعِبَادِهِ
Zirr bin Hubaish said:
"I came to Safwan bin `Assal Al Muradi to ask him about wiping over the Khuff, so he said: 'What has brought you, O Zirr?' So I said: 'The desire for knowledge.' So he said: 'Indeed, the angels lower their wings for the seeker of knowledge, out of pleasure with what he is seeking.' So I said: 'Indeed there is some doubt in my chest concerning wiping over the Khuff after defecation and urination, and you were a man from the Companions of the Prophet (ﷺ), so I came to you to ask you: Have you heard him (ﷺ) mention anything concerning that?' He said: 'Yes, he (ﷺ) used to order us, that when we were travelers' - or - 'in travel, to not remove our Khuff for three days and nights except, from sexual impurity, but not from defecation, urination, and sleep.'" He said: "Have you heard him (ﷺ) mention anything concerning love?" He said: "Yes. We were with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) on a journey when a Bedouin with a loud voice called upon him (saying): 'O Muhammad!' So the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) responded to him with a voice similar to him (saying): 'Come.' So we said to him: 'Lower your voice for you are with the Prophet (ﷺ), and you have been prohibited from this.' He said: 'By Allah, I will not lower (my voice).' The Bedouin said: 'A man loves a people but he is not with them (in terms of deeds)?' He (ﷺ) said: 'A man is with whomever he loves on the Day of Judgement.'" So he did not cease talking with us, until he mentioned a gate in the direction of the west with the width of seventy years journey - or a rider would travel its width - for forty or seventy years." Sufyan (one of the narrators) said: "In the direction of Ash-Sham, Allah created it the Day He created the heavens and the earth, open - that is, for repentance. It shall not be locked until the sun rises through it."
Reference: Jami` at-Tirmidhi 3535
In-book reference: Book 48, Hadith 166
English translation: Vol. 6, Book 45, Hadith 3535