up wealth by the handful, never counting it. Allah knows best. In his time fruits will be plentiful, crops abundant, money ample, authority unassailable, religion firmly established and manifest, the enemy censured, routed and humbled, the lands secure, command and prohibition upheld, provision continuously forthcoming, and goodness throughout his days constant and prevailing.

Imam Ahmad said:
Khalaf ibn al-Walid narrated to us; ʿAbbad ibn ʿAbbad narrated to us; Mujalid ibn Saʿid narrated to us, from Abū al-Waddak, from Abū Saʿid. He said:
“I remarked, ‘By Allah, every governor who is put over us is worse than the one before him, and every year that comes is worse than the one that preceded it.’ He replied, ‘Had it not been for something I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ I would have said the same, but I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

‘Among your rulers there will be a governor who will scoop up wealth in handfuls and never count it. A man will come to him asking, and he will say, “Take,” whereupon the man will spread out his garment and the ruler will pour into it.’ ”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ then spread out a coarse mantle he was wearing, imitating the man’s action, and gathered its edges together, and said, “The man will take it and depart.” Ahmad alone transmitted this through this chain (1).

Ibn Mājah likewise recorded:
Hadiyyah ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab narrated to us; Saʿd ibn ʿAbd al-Hamid ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us, from ʿAli ibn Ziyad al-Yamami, from ʿIkrimah ibn ʿAmmar, from Ishaq ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Talhah, from Anas ibn Malik, who said:
I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “We, the descendants of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, are the masters of the people of Paradise: myself, Ḥamzah, ʿAli, Jaʿfar, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn and the Mahdi.”

Our teacher Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzi said: This wording appears in Sunan Ibn Mājah, and in its chain is ʿAli ibn Ziyad al-Yamami; the correct name is ʿAbd Allah ibn Ziyad al-Suḥaymi. I add: The same is how al-Bukhari cited it in al-Tarikh and Ibn Abi Hatim in al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdil. The narrator is unknown, and this ḥadith is rejected (2).

Al-Ṭabarani transmitted—through the narration of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAli, from al-Awzaʿi, from Qays ibn Jabir al-Ṣadafi, from his father (from his grandfather)—the Prophet’s saying:
“There will be after me caliphs, then kings, then princes, then tyrants. Then a man from my household will emerge who will fill the earth with justice just as it had been filled with oppression. After that the Qaḥṭani will be appointed; by Him in Whose hand is my soul, he is not inferior to him.” (3)

As for the ḥadith that Ibn Mājah relates in his Sunan—may Allah have mercy on him—where he said:
Yunus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿla narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Idris al-Shafiʿi narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Khalid al-Jundi narrated to me, from Aban ibn Ṣalih, from al-Ḥasan, from Anas ibn Malik, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“The matter will only grow more severe, the world will only recede, people will only become more miserly. The Hour will not be established except upon the worst of mankind, and there is no Mahdi except Jesus son of Mary.”

This ḥadith is well-known.