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Fatwa CenterClarification of a narration
Question
I would like to know if the story of the man who killed 99 people and the scholar because he told him that there is no repentance for him is an authentic story or not as I had a disagreement with one of my brothers.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
The story you are asking about is sound and reported in Saheeh Muslim. As you know, Al-Bukhari and Muslim contain only sound narrations.
The wording of the story as reported in Muslim is as follows:
Abu Sa'eed Al-Khudri, 
reported:
Allaah's Messenger 
said: "There was a man before you who had killed ninety-nine persons and then made an inquiry about the most learned person of the town (who could show him the way to salvation). He was directed to a monk. He came to him and told him that he had killed ninety-nine persons and asked him whether there was any hope for his repentance to be accepted. He said: 'No'. He killed him also and thus completed one hundred. He then asked about the most learned person of the town and he was directed to a scholar, and he told him that he had killed one hundred people and asked him whether there was any hope for his repentance to be accepted. He said: 'Yes,' what could stand between you and the acceptance of repentance? You should go to such and such land; there are people devoted to worship and you also worship along with them and do not come to the land of yours since it was an evil land (for you). So, he went away and he had hardly covered half the distance when death came to him and there was a dispute between the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment. The angels of mercy said: "This man has come as a penitent and remorseful to Allaah," and the angels of punishment said: "He has done no good at all." Then there came another angel in the form of a human being in order to judge between them. He said: "Measure the land to which he has drawn nearer'. They measured it and found him nearer to the land where he intended to go (the land of piety), and so the angels of mercy took possession of his soul."
Allaah Knows best.
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