Subsection: His Rapid Movement Across the Earth

on the earth?' He replied: 'Like rain driven by the wind,' up to the end of the lengthy hadith. The eminent scholar stated in al-Bahjah: 'Some of them said: By analogy with prayer, fasting, Hajj, Umrah, and the passage of the hawl (one lunar year) for the zakat nisab are likewise determined.' End quote.

In a narration recorded by Imam Ahmad and Muslim from the hadith of Ibn Amr in marfu' form (attributed directly to the Prophet): 'The Dajjal will emerge among my Ummah and remain for forty. Then Allah will send Isa ibn Maryam (peace be upon him), as though he were Urwah ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqafi, and he will seek him out and destroy him.'

And in the hadith of Abu Umamah recorded by Ibn Majah, Ibn Khuzaymah, al-Hakim, and al-Diya': 'His days shall be forty years: a year like half a year, a year like a month, a year like a week, and the last of his days shall be like a spark. One of you will enter the morning at a city gate, and he will not reach its other gate until evening falls.'

The scholars have differed regarding the interpretation of this hadith. Some of them said: It is a metaphor for people being intensely preoccupied with their own plight due to tribulations, to the extent that they will not realize how the day passes; thus the passing of a day will seem to them like the passing of an hour, a month like a day, and a year like a month. Others said: Rather, it is to be understood according to its literal meaning, for it has been reported from the hadith of Anas by Imam Ahmad and al-Tirmidhi concerning the Signs of the Hour: 'Until time contracts, such that a year will be like a month, a month will be like a week, and a week...'