oppressed; if they try to speak, they are subdued and persecuted. The last of this community will curse the first—indeed, upon them the curse will alight—until they drink wine openly, and until a woman passes by a group of men and one of them rises to her and lifts the hem of her dress as a ram lifts the tail of an ewe. Some of them will say, “Could you not at least have taken her behind a wall?” On that day, such a man will be among them as Abu Bakr and ʿUmar are among you today. Whoever then enjoins what is right and forbids what is wrong will have the reward of fifty men who saw me, believed in me, obeyed me, and pledged allegiance to me. (1)

Mention of the evils that will occur in this Ummah at the end of time—though some of them have already appeared in our own day

Abu ʿAbd Allah Ibn Majah—may Allah have mercy on him—said in the Book of Tribulations of his Sunan:
“Mahmud ibn Khalid al-Dimashqi narrated to us; Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman, Abu Ayyub, narrated to us; from Ibn Abi Malik, from his father, from ʿAtaʾ ibn Abi Rabah, from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ turned to us and said:
‘O Emigrants! Five traits—should you be tested with them, and I seek refuge with Allah that you not live to see them:

1. No people ever make fornication manifest among themselves until they commit it openly without plague and diseases unknown to their predecessors spreading among them;
2. They never cheat in weight and measure without being afflicted by years of drought, high living costs, and the tyranny of their rulers;
3. They never withhold the zakah of their wealth without rain being withheld from the sky—and were it not for the livestock, not a drop would fall;
4. They never violate the covenant of Allah and His Messenger without Allah empowering an enemy from outside their ranks who will seize some of what is in their hands;
5. And as long as their leaders do not rule by the Book of Allah, choosing from what Allah has sent down only what suits them, Allah will set their own might against one another.’ ”

Ibn Majah alone transmitted this report, and it contains an element of strangeness. (2)

Al-Tirmidhi said: “Salih ibn ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; al-Faraj ibn Fadalah, Abu Fadalah al-Shami, narrated to us from Yahya ibn Saʿid, from Muhammad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAli, from ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, who said:

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘When my Ummah commits fifteen practices, tribulation will befall it.’
It was asked, ‘What are they, O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied:

1. When war booty is treated as private wealth,
2. trusts as mere gains,
3. zakah as a burden,
4. a man obeys his wife but disobeys his mother,
5. shows devotion to his friend while shunning his father,
6. voices are raised in the mosques,
7. the basest of the people becomes their leader,
8. a man is honored out of fear of his evil,
9. wine is drunk,
10. silk is worn,
11. songstresses and musical instruments are acquired,
12. and the later members of this Ummah curse its earliest members—then let them await a red wind, the earth’s swallowing, or a transformation.’ ”

Al-Tirmidhi added: “This hadith is gharīb; we do not know it from ʿAli except by this route, and we are unaware of anyone who narrated it from Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Ansari other than al-Faraj ibn …”