—he said: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ, the freedman of Umm Salamah, related to me, saying: I heard Abū Hurayrah declare: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:
‘If your lives are prolonged, you are sure to see people who set out in the morning under Allah’s wrath and return in the evening under His curse; in their hands will be whips like the tails of cattle.’”
Muslim also recorded this ḥadīth through Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, from Zayd ibn al-Ḥabbāb, from Aflah ibn Saʿīd with the same chain.
Muslim further narrated—through Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb, from Jarīr, from Suhayl, from his father, from Abū Hurayrah—that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“Two classes of the people of Hell I have not yet seen:
- People who will have whips like the tails of cattle with which they beat the people;
- Women who are clothed yet naked, swaying and causing others to sway, whose heads are like the tilted humps of Bactrian camels. They shall not enter Paradise, nor even smell its fragrance, though its fragrance can be perceived from such-and-such a distance.”
These two classes—the floggers known as the rijjāla and jandāriyya—and the women who are “clothed yet naked” are plentiful in our own day, as they were in the time just before us and long before that. “Clothed yet naked” means they wear garments that do not conceal their private parts; rather, they increase their exposure and display their adornment. They walk with an alluring sway and entice others to follow their example. The trial posed by such women has become widespread in our era and in the one preceding it. This stands as one of the clearest proofs of Prophethood, for events have unfolded exactly as he ﷺ foretold.
We have already cited the ḥadīth of Jābir: “Beware—patterned fabrics will indeed be yours,” along with the remainder of the report showing how that prophecy materialized and how his wife invoked it as evidence against him.
Another ḥadīth:
Imām Aḥmad narrated—from ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith, from Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind … and al-Bayhaqī likewise transmitted—from him—through Abū Ḥarb ibn Abī al-Aswad al-Dīlī, from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAmr al-Baṣrī:
He came to Madinah to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and while the Prophet was praying a man approached and said, “O Messenger of Allah, dates have scorched our stomachs and carrion no longer suffices us.” The Prophet then praised and glorified Allah and said: “I recall—my companion and I—when we had no food except al-barīr (a desert plant) until we reached our brothers from the Anṣār, who shared their food with us, most of which was dates. By Him in whose hand is my soul, if I were able to give you bread and dates I would certainly feed you with them. A time will come upon you—or upon those of you who live long enough—when people will wear garments like the curtains …”