Chapter 4: The Prophet's Saying: Woe to the Arabs From an Approaching Evil

[Time] (الزمان), and without his phrase "and stinginess will be cast" (ويلقى الشح), and he added to it: "and ignorance will become prevalent" (ويظهر الجهل). At the end of it, he said: "It was asked: O Messenger of Allah, and what is al-Haraj? He gestured like this with his hand and turned it, as though he meant killing." Thus, the reconciliation is that he combined gesture and speech; so some narrators preserved what others did not, just as occurred regarding the aforementioned matters. The explanation of the "days of al-Haraj" has also been transmitted in what Ahmad and al-Tabarani reported with a hasan chain of transmission from the hadith of Khalid ibn al-Walid (may Allah be pleased with him): A man said to him: "O Abu Sulayman, fear Allah, for fitan (tribulations) have appeared!" He replied: "As for now, while Ibn al-Khattab is alive, no! Rather, they will occur after him, when a man looks around and reflects whether he can find any place that has not been struck by the tribulation and evil that struck his own place, and he finds none. Those are the days that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) mentioned before the Hour: the days of al-Haraj." His statement: "And Yunus said" - meaning Ibn Yazid - "and Shu'ayb" - meaning Ibn Abi Hamzah - "and al-Layth, and the nephew of al-Zuhri, from al-Zuhri, from Humayd" - meaning Ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf - "from Abu Hurayrah": meaning that these four differed from Ma'mar in his saying "from al-Zuhri, from Sa'id", for they designated al-Zuhri's teacher to be Humayd, not Sa'id. Al-Bukhari's methodology indicates that both transmission paths are authentic, for he connected Ma'mar's chain here and connected Shu'ayb's chain in the Book of Good Manners (Kitab al-Adab). It is as if he viewed that this discrepancy does not impair authenticity because al-Zuhri was a master of hadith; hence, the hadith was narrated by him from two teachers. This principle does not necessarily apply to everyone concerning whom there is disagreement regarding their teacher, unless they are like al-Zuhri in vast hadith transmission and numerous teachers. Were it not for this, the narration of Yunus and those who followed him would have been preferred; yet Ma'mar's narration is not devoid of authenticity for the reason I mentioned. As for the narration of Yunus, Muslim connected it, as I mentioned, through Ibn Wahb from him, with the wording: "and knowledge will be seized" (ويقبض العلم), and he placed "and tribulations will appear" (وتظهر الفتن) before "and stinginess will be cast" (ويلقى الشح), and said: "They asked: What is al-Haraj? He said: Killing" without repeating the word "killing". A similar narration is recorded by Muslim through Suhayl ibn Abi Salih from his father from Abu Hurayrah as a marfu' report: "The Hour will not be established until al-Haraj increases", mentioning it limited to that. Abu Dawud reported it through 'Anbasah ibn Khalid from Yunus ibn Yazid with the wording: "and knowledge will decrease" (وينقص العلم). As for Shu'ayb's narration, the author (al-Bukhari) connected it in the Book of Good Manners from Abu al-Yaman from him; and he said in his narration: "time will draw near and deeds will decrease" (وينقص العمل), while in the transmission of al-Kushmayhani it is "knowledge" (العلم), and the rest is like the wording of Ma'mar. In both narrations of Yunus and Shu'ayb from al-Zuhri, it states: "Humayd ibn 'Abd al-Rahman narrated to me." As for al-Layth's narration, al-Tabarani connected it in al-Awsat via 'Abdullah ibn Salih from him with the same chain, identical to the wording of Ibn Wahb. As for the narration of the nephew of al-Zuhri, al-Tabarani also connected it in al-Awsat via Sadaqah ibn Khalid from 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Yazid ibn Jabir from the nephew of al-Zuhri - whose name was Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah ibn Muslim - and he said in his transmission: "I heard Abu Hurayrah", and its wording is like that of Ibn Wahb, except that he said: "We said: And what is al-Haraj, O Messenger of Allah?" Muslim also transmitted it from the narration of 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ya'qub, Hammam ibn Munabbih, and Abu Yunus the freed slave of Abu Hurayrah - all three from Abu Hurayrah - stating that it is like the hadith of Humayd ibn 'Abd al-Rahman, except that they did not mention: "and stinginess will be cast". I say: Ahmad recorded the wording of Hammam, the beginning of which is: "knowledge will be seized and time will draw near". An addition to the aforementioned matters has been narrated from Abu Hurayrah through another chain. Al-Tabarani reported in al-Awsat via Sa'id ibn Jubayr from him as a marfu' narration: "The Hour will not be established until obscenity and miserliness appear, the trustworthy person is betrayed, the traitor is trusted, the wa'ul perish, and the tuhut appear." They asked: "O Messenger of Allah, what are the tuhut and the wa'ul?" He replied: "The wa'ul are the eminent people and their nobles, while the tuhut are those who used to be beneath people's feet, of whom nothing was known." And he (al-Tabarani) recorded through Abu 'Alqamah: I heard Abu Hurayrah say: "Indeed, among the portents of the Hour..." narrating a similar report, and he added: "Likewise 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud informed us: Did you hear it from my beloved? He said: Yes. We asked: And what are the tuhut? He replied: The vile, worthless men (fusul al-rijal) and people of obscure lineages. We asked: And what are the wa'ul? He replied: The people of righteous, honorable households." Ibn Battal said: "There is nothing in this hadith that requires explanation except his statement..."