…and toward him the next, saying:

“This son of mine is a leader, and perhaps Allah will, through him, reconcile two great groups of Muslims.”

Al-Bukhārī remarks (1): ‘ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī told me that the only proof we possess of al-Ḥasan’s hearing from Abū Bakrah is this very ḥadīth.’ Al-Bukhārī also records it in “The Merits of al-Ḥasan” (2) and, in the Book of Tribulations, through ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī (3) from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Abū Mūsā—whose name is Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq.

Abū Dāwūd (4) and al-Tirmidhī (5) transmit it as well through the isnād of al-Ashʿath; Abū Dāwūd again, together with al-Nasāʾī (6), relate it through the isnād of ʿAlī ibn Zayd ibn Judʿān. All of them report from al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, from Abū Bakrah with this wording. Al-Tirmidhī declared the report sound (ṣaḥīḥ). It has additional chains: some mursal from al-Ḥasan, some from al-Ḥasan himself, and others from Umm Salamah.

Events then unfolded exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had foretold. When authority devolved upon al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī after his father’s death, he set out with the armies of Iraq, while Muʿāwiyah advanced toward him. They faced one another at Ṣiffīn, as al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī relates. Al-Ḥasan inclined to peace: he addressed the people, resigned the office, and handed it over to Muʿāwiyah. That occurred in the year 40 AH. The commanders of both armies pledged allegiance to Muʿāwiyah, who then shouldered the affairs of the ummah. That year came to be known as “the Year of Unity,” for the Muslims’ word converged upon one man. We shall, if Allah wills, discuss the matter in detail in its proper place.

The Truthful and Trustworthy Prophet had already testified to the Islam of both parties. Whoever labels either group—or any individual among them—an unbeliever merely because of what transpired is in error and has opposed the clear Muhammadan text; he ﷺ does not speak from desire— it is nothing but revelation that is sent down.

With that same year the period to which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ alluded—the span of successive caliphate after him—was completed, as has preceded in the ḥadīth of his freedman Safīnah, who said: “The Caliphate after me will last thirty years; then it will become kingship” (9). Another wording has, “a biting kingship,” and in yet another report Muʿāwiyah said, “We accepted it as kingship.”

Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād states in his book Al-Fitn wa’l-Malāḥim: I heard Muḥammad ibn Faḍīl narrate from al-Sarī ibn Ismāʿīl, from ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī, from Sufyān ibn al-Layl, who said: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī say: I heard ʿAlī say: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declare, “The days and nights will not pass away until the affair of this community unites under …”