with prominent cheekbones and a protruding brow. He said, “Fear Allah!” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ answered, “If I were to disobey Allah, then who would obey Him? The inhabitants of heaven trust me, yet you do not?” Someone asked the Prophet for permission to kill the man, but he refused and then declared:
“From the offspring of this man will emerge a people who recite the Quran but it does not pass beyond their throats. They will shoot out of Islam just as an arrow flies through its target. They will kill the people of Islam and spare the idol-worshippers. By Allah, if I live to meet them, I shall slay them with the slaughter of ʿĀd.” Muslim recorded this report, and al-Bukhārī transmitted it with a similar wording.

Al-Awzāʿī narrated—from al-Zuhrī—who said: Abū Salamah and al-Ḍaḥḥāk, meaning al-Mashriqī, related to me from Abū Saʿīd who said: While the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was once distributing some booty, Dhū al-Khuwayṣirah of Banū Tamīm exclaimed, “Messenger of Allah, be fair!” The Prophet replied, “Woe to you! Who would be fair if I am not?” ʿUmar rose and said, “Messenger of Allah, allow me to strike off his head.” The Prophet said, “No. He will have companions whose prayer will make one of you deem his own prayer paltry, and whose fasting will make one of you deem his own fasting paltry. They will dart out of the religion the way an arrow darts through its prey: the archer inspects the head of the arrow and finds nothing on it, then looks at the sinew and finds nothing, then at the shaft and finds nothing, then at the feathers and finds nothing. Their sign is a man with dark eyes, one of whose arms is like a woman’s breast—or like a dangling piece of flesh.”

Abū Saʿīd said, “I testify that I heard this from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and I testify that I was with ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him) when he fought them. We searched among the slain, and the man was brought exactly as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had described.” Al-Bukhārī recorded it.