and his ear will be severed, and the word kafir (disbeliever) will be written between his eyes so that no Muslim will fail to recognize him. Everyone who carries in his heart even a mustard-seed’s weight of faith will leave him, while his companions and troops will be the Magians, the Jews, the Christians, and those foreign idol-worshippers.
He will then call for a man—as the people see it—order that he be killed, have each of his limbs cut off separately and scattered so all may behold them, then gather the parts together again, strike him with his staff, and the man will stand up alive. He will proclaim, “I am Allah; I give life and cause death!” Yet all of this is nothing but sorcery with which he beguiles people’s eyes; in reality he brings none of it about.
Our teacher al-Dhahabi said: It was also transmitted by Yaḥyā ibn Mūsā Khatt (1) from Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Thaqafī (2), and it is weak.
It is further related from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said concerning the Dajjal: “He is Ṣāfī ibn Ṣāʾid. He will emerge from the Jewish quarter of Isfahan riding a tailless donkey; the distance between the donkey’s ears will be forty cubits, and from one hoof to the other a journey of four nights. With his hand he will reach up to the sky. Before him will be a mountain of smoke and behind him another mountain, and written between his eyes will be kafir. He will say, ‘I am your Lord Most High.’ His followers will be the people of usury and the children of fornication.” Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī recorded this in his book Akhbār al-Dajjal, but its chain is not authentic.
[A Remarkable Report and a Strange Account]
Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād said in his book al-Fitan: Abū ʿUmar narrated to us, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Lahīʿah, from ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Ḥusayn, from Muḥammad ibn Thābit, from his father, from al-Ḥārith, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd, from the Prophet ﷺ, who said:
“Between the Dajjal’s two ears there are forty cubits, and a single stride of his donkey equals the journey of three days. He will wade through the sea as one of you wades through a stream and will declare, ‘I am the Lord of all worlds. This sun moves by my permission; would you like me to stop it?’ The sun will then be held back until a day becomes like a month—and even like a Friday. Next he will say, ‘Shall I set it moving again?’ They will answer, ‘Yes,’ whereupon he will make the day as short as an hour.
“A woman will come to him and plead, ‘O Lord, restore my son to life, restore my husband to life,’ and she will see devils in their likenesses, while their houses are filled with devils. Bedouins will come to him and say, ‘Our Lord, revive for us our camels and our sheep,’ and he will give them devils resembling their very camels and sheep, identical in age and markings. They will say, ‘Had he not been our Lord, he would not have revived our dead.’
“He will have with him a mountain of stew and dripping fat (3), scalding hot and never cooling, a flowing river, a mountain of gardens and greenery, and a mountain of fire and smoke. He will say, ‘This is my Paradise, this is my Hellfire, this is my food, and this is my drink.’ And al-Yasaʿ, upon him be peace…”