…dictating to him, when he said,

“Shall we not write you down, Ibn Ḥawālah?”

I replied, “I do not know what Allah and His Messenger have chosen for me.” He then turned away from me and went on dictating to his scribe.

A little later he asked again, “Shall we not write you down, Ibn Ḥawālah?”

I answered, “I do not know what Allah and His Messenger have chosen for me,” so he turned aside from me and continued dictating to the scribe.

I looked and saw that the document already contained the name of ʿUmar, whereupon I said, “ʿUmar’s name is written only for something good.”

Then he asked a third time, “Shall we write you down, Ibn Ḥawālah?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said,

“O Ibn Ḥawālah, how will you cope with a turmoil that will break out in the far reaches of the earth, jutting forth like the horn-tips of cattle?”

I replied, “I do not know what Allah and His Messenger have chosen for me.”

He asked, “And how will you cope with another turmoil that will arise after it, compared to which the first will be no more than the swelling of a hare’s skin?”

I said, “I do not know what Allah and His Messenger have chosen for me.”

He said, “Follow this man.”

A man was then walking away with his back toward us. I hurried after him, took hold of his shoulders, turned his face toward the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and asked, “This man?”

He said, “Yes.”

It was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān—may Allah be pleased with him.

—

It is established in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, in the narration of Yaḥyā ibn Ādam from Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiyah from Suhayl from his father from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Iraq will withhold its dirham and its qafīz; Syria will withhold its mudd and its dinar; and Egypt will withhold its irdabb and its dinar. You will return to where you started, you will return to where you started, you will return to where you started. The flesh and blood of Abū Hurayrah testify to this.”

Yaḥyā ibn Ādam and other scholars said: This is one of the signs of prophethood, for the Prophet foretold what ʿUmar would later levy on the lands of Iraq—its dirhams and qafīzes—and what he would assess as land-tax in Syria and Egypt, all before any of it had taken place. May Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him.

People have differed over the meaning of his words ﷺ, “Iraq will withhold…,” and so on.

Some say it means that the people will embrace Islam, causing the land-tax to be lifted from them—a view preferred by al-Bayhaqī.

Others say it means that they will renounce obedience and refuse to pay the tax imposed upon them, and that is why he said, “You will return to where you started,” meaning: you will revert to the state you were in beforehand.

This accords with the authenticated ḥadīth in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim: “Islam began as something strange and will return to being strange, so glad tidings to the strangers.”