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In the hadith of Imrān ibn Husayn—may Allah be pleased with him—he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—say: “From the creation of Adam until the advent of the Hour, there will be no creature greater than the Dajjal” (1).
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As for the Dajjal having no children, this is based on the hadith of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī—may Allah be pleased with him—concerning his encounter with Ibn Sayyād. Ibn Sayyād said to Abū Saʿīd: “Have you not heard the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—say that he will have no children?” He said: “I replied, ‘Yes, I have’” (2).
It may be noted that some of the preceding narrations describe him as blind in the right eye, while others describe him as blind in the left eye. All these narrations are authentic, which poses a difficulty.
Al-Hāfiz Ibn Hajar held that the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar recorded in the two Sahīhs, which describes him as blind in the right eye, is stronger than Muslim’s narration describing him as blind in the left eye, because a narration whose authenticity is agreed upon is stronger than one that is not (3).
Al-Qādī ʿIyād held that both of the Dajjal’s eyes are defective, since all the narrations are authentic. The obliterated and effaced eye is the defective, extinguished eye—al-tāfiʾa, with a hamza—that is, the eye whose light has gone. This is the right eye, as in