in the year 125.” This ḥadith is exceedingly strange (1).

[A report concerning events after 200 AH]

Ibn Mājah said: al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Khallāl narrated to us; ʿAwn ibn ʿUmārah narrated to us; ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Muthannā ibn Thumāmah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Anas ibn Mālik related to me, from his father, from his grandfather, from Anas, from Abū Qatādah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The signs will appear after the two-hundreds.” Ibn Mājah then produced the ḥadith through two further routes from Anas with similar wording, but it is not authentic (2). Even were it sound, it would be understood as referring to the turmoil over the claim that the Qur’an is created and to the ordeal suffered by Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and his fellow masters of ḥadith, as we explained in detail elsewhere.

Rawwād ibn al-Jarrāḥ—whose transmissions are rejected—also reported, from Sufyān al-Thawrī, from Manṣūr, from Ribʿī, from Ḥudhayfah, in a marfūʿ report: “The best among you after the two-hundreds will be the khafīf al-ḥādh.” They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, what is khafīf al-ḥādh?”(3) He replied, “A man who has no wife, no wealth, and no children.” This report, too, is repudiated (4).

What is firmly established in the two Ṣaḥīḥs is the ḥadith of Shuʿbah, from Abū Jamrah, from Zuhdam ibn Muḍarrib, from ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “The best people of my ummah are those of my generation, then those who come after them, then those who come after them.” ʿImrān said, “I am not sure whether he mentioned two generations after his or three.” The Prophet then added, “After you there will come a people who give testimony without being asked, who betray and are not to be trusted, who make vows and do not fulfill them, and in whom obesity will become widespread.” This is al-Bukhārī’s wording (5).

[Mention of the year 500]

Abū Dāwūd said: ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān narrated to us; Abū al-Mughīrah narrated to us; Ṣafwān narrated to me, from Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, from Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ, from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: “I hope that my ummah will not be too weak before its Lord for Him to postpone it by half a day.” It was asked of Saʿd, “How long is half a day?” He replied, “Five hundred years.” Abū Dāwūd alone transmitted this ḥadith (6).

Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal likewise reported, from Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khashanī, a statement to the same effect (7). Specifying such a period does not rule out a longer span, if the ḥadith’s attribution is indeed sound—and Allah knows best.