Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī said in his book “al-Baʿth wa’l-Nushūr”: Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Dāwūd al-ʿAlawī related to us; Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Ḥamdawayh ibn Sahl al-Marwazī informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Āmulī narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿImrān narrated to us; my father narrated to me; Ibn Abī Laylā narrated to me, from Ismāʿīl ibn Rajāʾ, from Saʿd ibn Iyyās, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, who said one day to the companions sitting with him: “Have you considered Allah’s words, ‘where it sets in a muddy spring’ (18:86)? What do they mean?” They answered, “Allah and His Messenger know best.” He said, “When the sun sets it prostrates to Him, glorifies Him, and exalts Him, then remains beneath the Throne. When the time for its rising approaches, it again prostrates, glorifies, and exalts Him, then asks permission, and permission is granted. “On the day it is detained, however, it will prostrate, glorify, and exalt Him, then seek leave, and it will be told, ‘Stay where you are.’ When the moment for its rising draws near it will again prostrate, glorify, and exalt Him, then ask leave, and it will be told, ‘Stay where you are.’ Thus it will be held back for the length of two nights. “Those who devote themselves to the night prayer will be alarmed. A man will call to his neighbour that night, saying, ‘O so-and-so, what is happening to us tonight? I have slept until I am fully rested, and I have prayed until I am exhausted!’ “Then it will be said to the sun, ‘Rise from the place where you set.’ That will be the day when ‘no soul shall benefit from its faith if it had not believed before, nor earned any good through its faith’ (6:158).” (1) Imām Aḥmad said: Ḥakam ibn Nāfiʿ narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from Ḍamḍam ibn Zurʿah, from Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd, who traces it back to Mālik ibn Yukhamir, from Ibn al-Saʿdī, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Hijrah (emigration) will not cease so long as the enemy is fighting.” Muʿāwiyah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ then said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had also declared: “Hijrah is of two kinds: one is to abandon sinful deeds, and the other is to migrate to Allah and His Messenger. Hijrah will not end so long as repentance is accepted, and repentance will remain acceptable until the sun rises from the west. When it does, every heart will be sealed with what it contains, and people will no longer be required to act.” This chain is sound and strong, and none of the compilers of the six books has recorded it. (2) In the ḥadīth narrated by Imām Aḥmad, al-Tirmidhī—who graded it authentic—al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah, through ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd, from Zirr ibn Ḥubaysh, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAssāl, I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “Allah has opened a gate toward the west whose width is seventy”—or he said, “forty”—“years; it is a gate for repentance that will not be closed until the sun rises through it.” (3) These mutawātir aḥādīth, together with the noble verse, prove that whoever first brings forth faith or repentance after the sun has risen from the west will not have it accepted. The reason—Allah knows best—is that this event is among the greatest portents of the Hour and its unmistakable signs.