পৃষ্ঠা 80: প্রথম অধ্যায়: দূরবর্তী আলামতসমূহ যা ইতিমধ্যে প্রকাশ পেয়ে অতিক্রান্ত হয়েছে

Mention of the abundance of earthquakes, great slaughter, tremors, and the locations where they occur

In the year 597 AH, a village in the district of Busra was swallowed up by the earth.

In the year 533 AH, the town of Buhayrah was swallowed up, and black water emerged in place of the town.

In our own time, several villages in the regions of Azerbaijan, Khurasan, and other non-Arab lands have been swallowed up by the earth.

And such land-collapses can scarcely be enumerated.

Among these signs are: the abundance of earthquakes, the prevalence of slaughter, and violent tremors:

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), [who said: The Prophet (ﷺ) said]: "The Hour will not be established until knowledge is taken away, earthquakes become frequent, time contracts, tribulations appear, and al-Harj becomes abundant, which is killing." Narrated by al-Bukhari and Ibn Majah.

And in Ibn 'Asakir, from 'Urwah ibn Ruwaym, from [Jabir] al-Ansari, from him (ﷺ): "There will occur in my Ummah a violent tremor wherein ten thousand, twenty thousand, or thirty thousand shall perish; Allah will make it an admonition for the pious, a mercy for the believers, and a punishment upon the disbelievers."

At the beginning of the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, in the year 232 AH, a terrifying earthquake struck Damascus, causing houses to collapse and many people to perish beneath them. It extended to Antioch and destroyed it, reached the Jazira region and devastated it, and extended to Mosul, where it is said that fifty thousand of its inhabitants perished.

In the year 242 AH, the earth was shaken by a tremendous earthquake in Tunis and its surrounding dependencies, as well as in Khurasan, Nishapur, Tabaristan, and Isfahan. Mountains were shattered, and the earth split open to such an extent that a man could enter into the fissure; and between these two earthquakes was an interval of ten years.

In the year 245 AH, earthquakes enveloped the world, laying waste to cities, fortresses, and bridges, and a mountain from Antioch collapsed into the sea.

During the caliphate of al-Mu'tadid, in the year 280 AH, a massive earthquake occurred in al-Daybul, destroying most of the city, and the number of bodies extracted from beneath the rubble was one hundred and fifty thousand.