Al-Bayhaqi linked this confrontation to the ḥadīth recorded by the two Imams in their Ṣaḥīḥ collections (1) — through the isnād of ʿAbd al-Razzaq, from Maʿmar, from Hammām ibn Munabbih — on the authority of Abū Hurayrah. Al-Bukhari likewise transmitted it (2): in one route through Shuʿayb, from al-Zuhri, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah; and in another through Shuʿayb, from Abū al-Zinad, from al-Aʿraj, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“The Hour will not come until two mighty factions fight one another, between whom there will be great bloodshed, although their claim is the same.”

Mujālid narrated it from Abū al-Ḥawārī, from Abū Saʿīd, attributing it to the Prophet with similar wording (3). Al-Thawri reported it from Ibn Jadʿān, from Abū Naḍrah, from Abū Saʿīd, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared:

“The Hour will not arrive until two great parties fight, both of them holding the same call (4). While they are in that state, a sect will break away from them; it will be killed by the faction that is nearer to the truth.”

We have already cited what Imām Aḥmad related (5) through Mahdi and Isḥāq, from Sufyān, from Manṣūr, from Ribʿī ibn Ḥirāsh, from al-Barāʾ ibn Nājiya al-Kāhilī, from Ibn Masʿūd, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stated:

“The mill-stone of Islam will turn for thirty-five or thirty-six years. If they are destroyed, that is the path of those who perish (6); but if their religion is upheld for them, it will remain for seventy years.”

ʿUmar asked, “Messenger of Allah, is that with respect to what has already passed or what is yet to come?” He replied, “Rather, it is of what is yet to come.”

Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Dīzayl also recorded it in a work he compiled on the ‘Biography of ʿAlī’, [which he narrated from Ibrāhīm] from Abū Nuʿaym al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn, from Sharīk, from Manṣūr, with the same wording.

He further said: We were told by Abū Nuʿaym; he was told by Sharīk ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nakhaʿī, from Mujālid, from ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī, from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh, who said:

“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ informed us: ‘The mill-stone of Islam will turn after thirty-five years. If they reconcile among themselves, they will enjoy the life of this world in comfort for seventy years; but if they fight one another, they will follow the ways of those who came before them.’”