“By Allah, I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say:

‘Before the Day of Resurrection al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl (the Antichrist) will surely appear, and together with him thirty—or even more—liars.’ (1)

Al-Ṭabarānī likewise transmitted it on the authority of Muwarriq al-ʿAjlī from Ibn ʿUmar with similar wording, but Ahmad alone preserved this version. (1)

Imam Ahmad also said: ʿAbd al-Ṣamad narrated to us; Ḥammād—meaning Ibn Salamah—narrated to us; from ʿAlī ibn Zayd; from Yūsuf ibn Mihrān; from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar. A man from Kufa was sitting with him and began relating accounts about al-Mukhtār. Ibn ʿUmar remarked, “If what you say is true, then I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, ‘Ahead of the Hour there will be thirty dajjāls, all of them liars.’” Ahmad alone narrated it through this route. (2)

It was also reported by Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir on the authority of Ibn ʿUmar, but with the wording “seventy.” Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Yaʿlā said: Wāṣil ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us; Ibn Fuḍayl narrated to us; from Layth; from Saʿīd ibn ʿĀmir; from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declare, “In my community there will be a little over seventy callers, each one calling to the Fire. Were I to wish, I could tell you their names and their clans.” This chain is sound. (3) Ibn Mājah used this very chain for a ḥadith concerning cupping the hand to drink water. (4)

Abū Yaʿlā also said: Zuhayr narrated to us; Jarīr narrated to us; from Layth; from Bishr; from Anas, who related that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Before the emergence of al-Dajjāl there will be somewhat more than seventy dajjāls.” There is some irregularity in this report, whereas the wording found in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections is more firmly established. Allah knows best. (5)

Ahmad further said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated to us; from al-Zuhrī; from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAwf; from Abū Bakrah, who said: People talked at length about Musaylimah before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said anything about him. Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ arose and addressed them, saying:

“To proceed: concerning this man about whom you have spoken so much, he is one liar among thirty liars who will appear before the Hour. There is no land but that the terror of al-Masīḥ will reach it—except Medina; at every one of its passes stand two angels guarding it against the dread of al-Masīḥ.”

Ahmad also narrated the same report through Ḥajjāj, from Layth ibn Saʿd, from ʿAqīl, from Ibn Shihāb, from Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAwf, who said that ʿIyāḍ ibn Musāfiʿ informed him on the authority of Abū Bakrah. He mentioned it, adding: “He is a liar—one of thirty liars—who will appear before al-Dajjāl. There is no town that the terror of al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl will not enter, except Medina.”