One day, while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was among us, he dozed off briefly. Then he raised his head smiling.We asked, "What has made you laugh, Messenger of Allah?"He replied, "A surah has just been revealed to me."Then he recited, "In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful. Indeed, We have granted you al-Kawthar. So pray to your Lord and sacrifice. Indeed, your enemy is the one cut off." [Kawthar 108:1–3].Then he asked, "Do you know what al-Kawthar is?"We said, "Allah and His Messenger know best."He said, "It is a river my Lord has promised me. Upon it is abundant good. It is a pool to which my community will come on the Day of Resurrection, its vessels as numerous as the stars. A servant will be snatched away from among them, and I will say, 'My Lord, he is from my community.' He will reply, 'You do not know what they introduced after you.'"
بينا رسول الله ﷺ ذات يوم بين أظهرنا إذ أغفى إغفاءة، ثم رفع رأسه مبتسما، فقلنا: ما أضحكك يا رسول الله؟ قال: ((أنزلت علي آنفا سورة)). فقرأ: {بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم إنا أعطيناك الكوثر فصل لربك وانحر إن شانئك هو الأبتر}. ثم قال: أتدرون ما الكوثر؟ فقلنا: الله ورسوله أعلم. قال: فإنه نهر وعدنيه ربي عز وجل، عليه خير كثير، هو حوض ترد عليه أمتي يوم القيامة، آنيته عدد النجوم، فيختلج العبد منهم، فأقول: رب إنه من أمتي. فيقول: ما تدري ما أحدث بعدك.
Muslim narrated it in the Book of Prayer (400) through several routes from Ali bin Mushir, who said, Mukhtar bin Fulful told us, from Anas bin Malik, and he mentioned it. Others besides Ali bin Mushir narrated it in a similar wording to his, except that he said, "A river my Lord has promised me in Paradise, upon which is a basin." He did not mention, "Its vessels are as numerous as the stars."Kawthar is a river inside Paradise, and its water pours into the basin. The basin is also called Kawthar because it is fed from it. In the hadith of Ibn Masud it says, "A river opens up from Kawthar leading to the basin," except that it is daif, as will be mentioned later.His saying "yukhtalaju" means "he is snatched away and cut off."