Abu Dāwūd said:
Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Mahri related to us; Ibn Wahb related to us; Saʿīd ibn Abī Ayyūb related to us, from Sharāḥīl ibn Yazīd al-Maʿāfirī, from Abū ʿAlqamah, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said:

“Indeed Allah, Exalted is He, sends to this community, at the beginning of every hundred years, someone who will renew for it the affair of its religion.”

Abu Dāwūd alone transmitted this report. He then added: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shurayḥ did not narrate it through Sharāḥīl,” meaning that the narration is mawqūf upon him (1).

Every group has claimed that the ḥadīth refers to its own imām. The apparent sense, however—and Allah knows best—is that it applies in a general way to all upright bearers of knowledge in every community: those whose practice is taken directly from the Lawgiver, or whose views accord with the truth, from every section and class of scholars—exegetes, hadith critics, reciters, jurists, grammarians, linguists, and others engaged in the beneficial sciences. Allah knows best.

Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said: “Whoever among our scholars becomes corrupt resembles the Jews, and whoever among our devotees becomes corrupt resembles the Christians.”

His statement in the ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr—“Allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from the people; rather, He removes knowledge by taking away the scholars”—plainly shows that knowledge is not stripped from the hearts of the scholars after Allah has bestowed it upon them.

Another ḥadīth, narrated by Ibn Mājah from Bundār and Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, from Ghundar, from Shuʿbah, states that Qatādah said—reporting from Anas ibn Mālik: “Shall I not relate to you a ḥadīth I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ which no one after me will tell you? I heard him say:

‘Among the portents of the Hour are that knowledge will be taken away, ignorance will become manifest, fornication will spread, wine will be drunk, men will disappear and women will remain, until one man will be responsible for fifty women.’”

The two Ṣaḥīḥs also record it through the narration of Ghundar (2).

Ibn Mājah further said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr related to us; my father and Wakīʿ related to us, from al-Aʿmash, from Shaqīq, from ʿAbd Allāh, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“There will come, before the Hour, days in which knowledge will be lifted, ignorance will descend, and al-harj will multiply.”

Al-harj means killing. Al-Bukhārī and Muslim have also narrated it from al-Aʿmash (3).

Ibn Mājah also said: ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Abū Muʿāwiyah narrated to us, from Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī, from Ribʿī ibn Ḥirāsh, from Hudhayfah ibn al-Yamān, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Islam will wear away just as the pattern on a garment wears away, until no one knows what fasting is, nor prayer, nor charity, nor the pilgrimage sacrifice; and the Book will be taken away in a single night, so that nothing remains…”