al-Zuhrī, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who said:

“A boy was born to the brother of Umm Salamah—the wife of the Prophet ﷺ—and they named him al-Walīd. The Prophet ﷺ said,

‘You have named him after the tyrants among you! (1) There shall indeed arise in this community a man called al-Walīd who will bring upon this ummah more corruption than Pharaoh brought upon his own people.’ (2)”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir remarks: This report was also transmitted by al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Maʿqil ibn Ziyād, Muḥammad ibn Kathīr, and Bishr ibn Abī Bakr from al-Awzāʿī, but they omitted ʿUmar from the chain and related it as a mursal report; Ibn Kathīr further omitted Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib. He then set out all of these routes with their chains and wordings.

It is related from al-Bayhaqī that he said, “It is a sound mursal narration.” He then cited the route of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAṭāʾ, from Zaynab bint Umm Salamah, from her mother, who said:

“The Prophet entered my house while a boy from the family of al-Mughīrah, whose name was al-Walīd, was with me. He asked, ‘Who is this, O Umm Salamah?’ I replied, ‘This is al-Walīd.’ The Prophet ﷺ said,

‘So you have taken al-Walīd as a darling! Change his name, for there will be in this ummah a Pharaoh who is called al-Walīd.’ (3)”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir also narrated—through the chain of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Muslim, Muḥammad ibn Ghālib al-Anṭākī, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Abī Dāwūd, Ṣadaqah, Hishām ibn al-Ghāz, Makḥūl, Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khushani, and Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ—that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“This affair will continue to stand upon justice until it is undermined by a man from the Banū Umayyah.” (4)

[The manner of his killing and the fall of his rule]

This man flaunted his depravity, persisted in it, and violated the sacred limits set by Allah—exalted is He—refraining from no sin. Some even accused him of outright heresy and abandonment of the faith; (5) Allah knows best. What is apparent, however, is that he was