—the Truthful, the ever-Believed—saying:

“The destruction of my community will come at the hands of immature, reckless princes from Quraysh.” (1)

Imām Aḥmad also recorded:

“Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us; Ḥaywah narrated to us; Bashīr ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Khawlānī told me that al-Walīd ibn Qays al-Tujībī related to him that he heard Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī say: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declare:

‘After the sixtieth year there will arise a generation of people about whom the verse applies: “They neglected the prayer and pursued their desires; so they will soon face ruin.” (Maryam 19:59) Then another generation will appear who recite the Qur’an but it goes no farther than their throats. The Qur’an will be recited by three sorts of people: a believer, a hypocrite, and a sinner.’

Bashīr continued: I asked al-Walīd, ‘Who are these three?’ He replied, ‘The hypocrite is one who inwardly disbelieves in it, the sinner is one who makes a living from it, and the believer is one who truly believes in it.’ (2)

Aḥmad alone transmitted this report; its chain is good and strong, meeting the standards of the Sunan collections.

Al-Bayhaqī further narrated—through al-Ḥākim, al-Aṣamm, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAffān, Abū Usāmah, Mujālid, and al-Shaʿbī—that when ʿAlī returned from Ṣiffīn he said:

‘People, do not dislike the governorship of Muʿāwiyah. Were you to lose him, you would see heads springing from shoulders like colocynths.’ (3)(4)

He also related—through al-Ḥākim and others, from al-Aṣamm, from al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd ibn Mazīd, from his father, from Ibn Jābir, from ʿUmayr ibn Hāniʾ—that:

‘Abū Hurayrah used to walk through the marketplace of Madinah saying, “O Allah, do not let me live to see the year sixty! Alas, hold fast to Muʿāwiyah’s temple-locks. O Allah, do not let me witness the rule of the youngsters!”’ (5)

Al-Bayhaqī commented: ‘ʿAlī and Abū Hurayrah only said this because they had heard it from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’ (6)

Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān said:

‘ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-Ḥarrānī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān related to us, from Abū Ghunaym al-Baʿlabaqī, from Hishām ibn al-Ghāz, from Makḥūl, from Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khushanī, from Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stated, “This affair will remain upright and established on justice until a man from Banū Umayyah breaks it.”’ (7)

Al-Bayhaqī likewise transmitted—through ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī, from Abū Khulda, from Abū al-ʿĀliyah, from Abū Dharr—who said:

‘I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “The first person to alter my Sunnah will be a man from Banū Umayyah.”’ (8)

Al-Bayhaqī noted: ‘This chain is disconnected between Abū al-ʿĀliyah and Abū Dharr.’