In brief
The Prophet ﷺ urged hastening to good deeds ahead of seven things, one of them 'a sudden, dispatching death'; its spread is counted among the signs of the latter days.
Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: 'Hasten to good deeds ahead of seven. Are you waiting for anything but a poverty that makes you forget, a wealth that makes you transgress, a sickness that corrupts, a senility that confounds, a sudden death, the Dajjal - an awaited evil absent one - or the Hour, and the Hour is more calamitous and bitter?' (Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2306). Tirmidhi called it hasan gharib; later scholars grade the chain weak.
A general admonition about the latter days; it fixes no date and sets no order.
Do not postpone repentance and good deeds; keep your accounts with Allah and people settled, so that a sudden death finds you ready.
Draft brief, not yet checked by the scholar board. The full texts are in the Sources tab and the scholars' views in their own tab.
Where it sits in the sequence
Phase 2 · Signs that spread among people
The narrations do not put these in order, and many of them overlap. Sahih al-Bukhari 7121 lists several together.
What scholars have said
Scholars cite it in part, or differ
Draft attributions: each must be checked against the named book before publication.
al-Mubarakfurid. 1353 AH
Reads 'a sudden, dispatching death' (mawtan mujhizan) in the hadith 'hasten to good deeds ahead of seven' as the sudden, unexpected death that overtakes a person without warning, and notes other reports that its spread is among the signs of the latter days; the command is to race to righteous deeds before it arrives.
Tuhfat al-Ahwadhi, on Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2306
No historical or present-day data has been entered for this sign yet. Each figure will carry its source and an as-of date.