The warning about how a life ends
It runs in both directions.
إِنَّ أَحَدَكُمْ لَيَعْمَلُ بِعَمَلِ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ حَتَّى مَا يَكُونَ بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَهَا إِلاَّ ذِرَاعٌ فَيَسْبِقُ عَلَيْهِ الْكِتَابُ
Inna aḥadakum la-yaʿmalu bi-ʿamali ahli-l-jannati ḥattā mā yakūnu baynahu wa baynahā illā dhirāʿun fa-yasbiqu ʿalayhi-l-kitāb
One of you does the work of the people of the Garden until there is only a forearm's length between him and it, and then what was written overtakes him.
Where this comes from
It is said twice, once each way. The man a forearm from the Garden who turns, and the man a forearm from the Fire who turns. Ibn Masʿud reports it introduced as coming from the truthful one who is believed.
The full narration
Abdullah (b. Mas'ud) reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) who is the most truthful (of the human beings) and his being truthful (is a fact) said:Verily your creation is on this wise. The constituents of one of you are collected for forty days in his mother's womb in the form of blood, after which it becomes a clot of blood in another period of forty days. Then it becomes a lump of flesh and forty days later Allah sends His angel to it with instructions concerning four things, so the angel writes down his livelihood, his death, his deeds, his fortune and misfortune. By Him, besides Whom there is no god, that one amongst you acts like the people deserving Paradise until between him and Paradise there remains but the distance of a cubit, when suddenly the writing of destiny overcomes him and he begins to act like the denizens of Hell and thus enters Hell, and another one acts in the way of the denizens of Hell, until there remains between him and Hell a distance of a cubit that the writing of destiny overcomes him and then he begins to act like the people of Paradise and enters Paradise
Source
Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim · 6723
- Agreed upon as authentic (al-Bukhārī / Muslim)