Then Aḥmad also transmitted it through Rawḥ, from al-Awzāʿī, with the same chain, adding:

“At that point the Romans will break the treaty and assemble for the Great Battle (al-Malḥamah).”

Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah likewise recorded it on the authority of al-Awzāʿī. (1)

It has already been cited in the narration of ʿAwf ibn Mālik in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: “They will come against you under eighty banners; beneath every banner will be twelve thousand men.” (2)

The same wording occurs in the ḥadīth of Shaddād Abū ʿAmmār, from Muʿādh: “They will march toward you with eighty standards; under each standard will be twelve thousand men.” (3)

Imām Aḥmad said:

Ismāʿīl related to us; Ayyūb related to us, from Ḥumayd ibn Hilāl, from Abū Qatādah, from Usayr ibn Jābir, who said:

A red wind arose in Kūfah. A man whose only constant utterance (4) was, “O ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, the Hour has come!” arrived. Ibn Masʿūd had been reclining; he sat up and said, “The Hour will not be established until inheritance is no longer divided and people cease to rejoice over booty.”

I asked, “For what reason will that be?”

He replied, “Because an enemy will muster against the people of Islam, and the Muslims will muster against them”—and he gestured with his hand toward al-Shām.

I said, “Do you mean the Romans?”

He said, “Yes. When that battle takes place there will be a severe apostasy.”

He went on to say: “The Muslims will then select a shurṭah—an elite detachment pledged to fight to the death—which will not return unless victorious. They will fight until night separates them; then both forces will withdraw, neither side victorious, and the shurṭah will have perished.

“The Muslims will again select a shurṭah pledged to fight to the death; it will not return unless victorious. They will fight until night falls, withdraw with neither side victorious, and the shurṭah will have perished.

“Once more the Muslims will choose a shurṭah pledged to fight to the death; it will not return unless victorious. They will fight until evening, withdraw with neither side victorious, and the shurṭah will have perished.

“When the fourth day arrives, the remainder of the Muslims will surge forward. Allah will grant them victory over their enemy, and they will engage in a slaughter—he said either, ‘the like of which will not be seen,’ or, ‘the like of which has never been seen’—so severe that a bird flying over their flanks will not pass them before it falls dead.

“Then the sons of one father will count themselves; though they were one hundred, they will find that only one man survives. How, then, could anyone rejoice over spoils, or how could any inheritance be divided? While they are in that state they will hear of a calamity even greater than that.”

He said, “A herald will come, announcing: ‘The Antichrist has entered among your families behind you.’ They will abandon whatever is in their hands and hurry back, dispatching ten horsemen as scouts.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“I know their names, the names of their fathers, and the colours of their horses; they will be the best horsemen on the face of the earth that day.”

Muslim alone recorded this ḥadīth. He narrated it from Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah and ʿAlī ibn Ḥujr, both from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah; and also through Ḥammād ibn Zayd, both from Ayyūb; and from