Zirr bin Hubaysh (may Allah have mercy on him) says: I came to Sayyiduna Safwan bin Assal al-Muradi (may Allah be pleased with him), and he said: "O bald one! What has brought you?" I said: "The search for knowledge." He said: "It has reached me that the angels spread their wings for the seeker of knowledge out of pleasure with what he does." I said: "Some doubt, or confusion, has arisen in my heart about wiping over the leather socks. Have you preserved anything from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) about it?" He said: "Yes, when we were on a journey or travelling, he (peace and blessings be upon him) would order us not to take off our leather socks for three days except for major ritual impurity (janabah); but for defecation, urination and sleep (we should not take them off)." I said: "Have you preserved anything from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) about love?" He said: "Yes, we were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) on such-and-such a journey, when a rough, harsh-spoken Bedouin at the rear of the people called out to him (peace and blessings be upon him) in a loud voice: 'O Muhammad, O Muhammad!' The people said to him: 'Be quiet; you have been forbidden from this.' So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) answered him in the same manner and said: 'Yes, listen.' He asked: 'A man loves a people but has not joined them (what is his ruling)?' He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: 'A person is with the one he loves.'" Zirr says: Then he (Sayyiduna Safwan, may Allah be pleased with him) kept on narrating hadiths to me until he narrated to me (this hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)): "Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has made in the west a door for repentance whose width is the distance of a journey of seventy years. It will not be closed until the sun rises from its direction." And this is the saying of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic: "On the day some of the signs of your Lord come, no soul will benefit from its faith if it had not believed before or earned some good through its faith." [Surah al-An'am: 158]
Hadith Referenceالمعجم الكبير للطبراني / باب الصاد / 7329