but they saw nothing. He thereupon said,

"That was Gabriel; he came to teach the people their religion." The two Ṣaḥīḥ collections record this (1).

Muslim also transmits, on the authority of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, a narration similar to it but more detailed (2).

His ﷺ statement, "that the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress," means that in the latter days the female slaves will be the ones singled out for honor and reserve—that a slave-girl will belong to an elderly man in preference to freeborn women. For that reason he linked it to his words:

"and that you see the barefoot, naked, destitute competing in the construction of lofty buildings,"

meaning that such people will become the leaders of society: their wealth will multiply, their influence will spread, and they will have no pursuit or ambition save vying with one another in erecting tall structures.

This matches the earlier ḥadīth,

"The Hour will not be established until the person most favored with worldly fortune is Lukaʿ ibn Lukaʿ" (3).

In another ḥadīth:

"The Hour will not come until the lowliest man of every tribe becomes its chief" (4).

And in yet another:

"When authority is entrusted to those who are unqualified, then await the Hour" (5).

Whoever explained the slave-girl’s giving birth to her mistress as a mere reference to the abundance of concubines resulting from conquests should realize that this was already exceedingly common in the earliest period of this community; it therefore cannot be one of the portents that appear just before the Hour. Allah knows best.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī said in his book al-Baʿth wa l-Nushūr: Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥāfiẓ and Abū Zakariyyā ibn Abī Isḥāq both informed us, saying: ʿAbd al-Bāqī ibn Qāniʿ al-Ḥāfiẓ narrated to us; he said: ʿAbd al-Wārith ibn Ibrāhīm al-ʿAskarī told us; he said: Sīf ibn Miskīn narrated to us; he said: al-Mubārak ibn Faḍālah narrated to us from al-Ḥasan, who said:

ʿUtayy said: I set out seeking knowledge and arrived in Kūfah, where I encountered ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd. I asked, “O Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, is there a sign by which the Hour can be recognized?” He replied: I asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about that, and he said:

“Among the portents of the Hour are: that a child becomes a cause of rage, rain is accompanied by scorching heat, the wicked overflow while the righteous diminish, the liar is believed and the truthful rejected, the treacherous are trusted and the trustworthy deemed treacherous; the hypocrites of every tribe become its leaders and the most boisterous people of every marketplace its dignitaries; prayer niches are lavishly adorned while hearts are ruined; men suffice with men and women with women; the inhabited parts of the world are laid waste and its ruins are built up; trials appear, usury is consumed, musical instruments and large drums (6) become widespread, wine is drunk, the number of enforcers increases, and slanderers and back-biters abound.”

Al-Bayhaqī then commented: This chain contains weakness, yet most of its wording has been transmitted through other, separate chains of narration.