such that even the tree will cry out, “O believer, here is an unbeliever,” and the stone will cry out, “O believer, here is an unbeliever.” Aḥmad alone recorded this narration (1).

Those two garrison-cities are most likely Basra and Kufa, as is suggested by what Imām Aḥmad transmitted: Abū al-Naḍr Hāshim ibn al-Qāsim narrated to us; al-Ḥashraj ibn Nubātah al-Qaysī al-Kūfī narrated to us; Saʿīd ibn Jumhān narrated to me; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakrah narrated to us; my father narrated to me in this mosque—meaning the mosque of Basra—who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said,

“A faction of my community will surely settle in a land called Basra; their numbers will increase there and their date-palms will become abundant. Then the sons of Qanṭūrāʾ (2), a people with small eyes, will come until they camp at a bridge of theirs called the Tigris. The Muslims will then divide into three groups: one group will seize the tails of the camels and head for the desert, and they will be destroyed; another group will surrender themselves and fall into disbelief—these and the first are alike; and a third group will place their families behind them and fight. Those who are killed among them are martyrs, and Allah will grant victory to the survivors.”

Aḥmad also related it through Yazīd ibn Hārūn and others, from al-ʿAwām ibn Ḥawshab, from Saʿīd ibn Jumhān, from Ibn Abī Bakrah, from his father. Al-ʿAwām said: “The sons of Qanṭūrāʾ are the Turks.” Abū Dāwūd likewise reported it from Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Fāris, from ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith, from his father, from Saʿīd ibn Jumhān, from Muslim ibn Abī Bakrah, from his father, giving a similar account (3).

Abū Dāwūd further narrated—through Bashīr ibn al-Muhājir, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buraydah, from his father—that the Prophet ﷺ said in a longer ḥadīth: “A people with small eyes will fight you,” meaning the Turks. He added, “You will drive them off three times until you force them back to the Arabian Peninsula. In the first retreat those who flee will escape; in the second, some will escape and some will perish; in the third they will be annihilated (4),” or words to that effect. This is the wording recorded by Abū Dāwūd (5).

Al-Thawrī narrated from Salamah ibn Kuhayl, from Abū al-Zaʿrāʾ, from Ibn Masʿūd, who said: “When the Dajjāl appears, people will split into three camps: a camp that follows him; a camp that returns to the homeland of its forefathers, to the wormwood plains; and a camp that takes position on the bank of the Euphrates. He will fight them and they will fight him until the believers gather in the villages of Syria. They will send out a scouting party, among whom will be a horseman mounted on a chestnut—or piebald—horse; they will all be killed and none of them will return (6).”