5 - Ithāf al-Jamāʿa bi-mā Jāʾa fī al-Fitan wa-l-Malāhim wa-Ashrāt al-Sāʿa (“A Gift to the Community concerning What Has Been Related about Tribulations, Epic Battles, and the Signs of the Hour”), by Shaykh Hammūd ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tuwayjirī al-Najdī. The shaykh is still living—may Allah preserve him.

…along with other works dealing with the Signs of the Hour.

I have benefited from those who preceded me, and I resolved to follow an approach in this study to which I bound myself: I would mention no sign unless the Prophet ﷺ expressly or implicitly identified it as one of the Signs of the Hour. I also committed myself to citing only sound or acceptable hadiths, guided in this by the judgments of hadith scholars regarding their authenticity or weakness.

For the sake of brevity, I have not cited every sound hadith concerning each sign. Rather, I have confined myself to some of the hadiths establishing that it is one of the Signs of the Hour.

I have also included whatever clarification each sign requires, such as explaining an unfamiliar word or identifying places mentioned in the hadiths. I have further followed each sign with a brief explanation drawn either from the words of scholars or from hadiths related to the sign being discussed. I have responded to some who denied certain Signs of the Hour or interpreted them in ways contrary to what their hadiths indicate. I have explained that the Signs of the Hour belong to the unseen and must be believed exactly as they have been transmitted. They may neither be rejected nor treated as symbols of good, evil, or the rise of superstition.

Since many of the Signs of the Hour have been reported through solitary reports, I have devoted, at the beginning of