I would certainly inform you (1) of what Allah has promised—on the tongue of Muhammad ﷺ—to those who slay them.”
I asked, “Did you hear that from him yourself?”
He replied, “Yes, by the Lord of the Kaʿbah! Yes, by the Lord of the Kaʿbah! Yes, by the Lord of the Kaʿbah! Among them there is a man with a mukhdaj hand, or a mathdūn hand—I think he said: or a mūdan hand.”
Muslim (2) also narrated this report, through Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayya and Ḥammād ibn Zayd—both of them from Ayyūb, from Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, from Ibn Abī ʿAdī, from Ibn ʿAwn, both of them from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, from ʿUbayda, from ʿAlī.
We have already cited it through numerous chains that, in the view of many scholars, make its attribution to Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn conclusive. He swore that he heard it from ʿUbayda, and ʿUbayda swore that he heard it from ʿAlī, and ʿAlī swore (3) that he heard it from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. ʿAlī also said, “For me to fall from the sky to the earth is dearer to me than to lie against the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”
Another chain
ʿAbd Allāh, the son of (Imām) Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (4), said: Ismāʿīl Abū Maʿmar narrated to me; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs narrated to us; ʿĀṣim ibn Kulayb narrated to us, from his father, who said:
I was sitting with ʿAlī when a man dressed in travel clothes entered and asked permission to see him while he was speaking to the people, so he was occupied with them. ʿAlī said:
“I once entered upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while ʿĀʾishah was with him, and he said to me, ‘How will you be when you meet a people (5) such-and-such?’ I replied, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’ He said:
‘A people will emerge from the east; they recite the Quran but it does not pass beyond their collarbones. They shoot out of the religion as an arrow passes clear through the game. Among them is a man with a mukhdaj hand; his hand resembles the teat of an Abyssinian woman.’
I adjure you by Allah—have I not told you that he is among them?” He then narrated the hadith in full.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad (6) also transmitted it from Abū Khaythamah Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb, from al-Qāsim ibn Mālik, from ʿĀṣim ibn Kulayb, from his father, from ʿAlī, with similar wording; its chain is sound, though the compilers of the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections did not include it.
Another chain (7)
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (8) said: Abū al-Qāsim al-Azharī informed us; ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān informed us