Imam Aḥmad said:
Yaḥyā narrated to us, from Ibn ʿAjlān, who said: I heard my father relate, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The Hour will not come until knowledge is taken away, ignorance becomes manifest, and al-harj multiplies.” They asked, “What is al-harj?” He replied, “Killing.” Aḥmad alone transmitted this report, and its chain meets the conditions of Muslim. (1)

Imam Aḥmad also said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated to us, from Hammām; from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The Hour will not come until wealth overflows among you, so much so that a rich man will fret about who will accept his charity; knowledge will be withdrawn; time will contract; trials will appear; and al-harj will increase.” They asked, “What is al-harj, O Messenger of Allah?” He answered, “Killing, killing.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also said, “The Hour will not come until two great factions fight, both having the same claim, and a tremendous slaughter takes place between them.”

He ﷺ said as well, “The Hour will not come until nearly thirty great impostors appear, each of them claiming that he is the Messenger of Allah.”

And he ﷺ said, “The Hour will not come until the sun rises from the west. When it rises and the people behold it, they will all believe; yet that will be the moment when, ‘No soul will benefit by its faith if it had not believed before or earned some good through its faith’ (Qur’an 6:158).” This ḥadīth is established in the Ṣaḥīḥ. (2)

Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Bazzār said: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥakam narrated to us; from Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Yamāmī; from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr; from Abū Salamah; from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet ﷺ, who said, “By Him Who sent me with the truth, this world will not end until there be swallowing by the earth (khasf), pelting from the sky (qadhf), and transformation (mask).” They asked, “When will that be, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “When you see women riding on saddles, songstresses abound, false testimony spreads, and men suffice with men while women suffice with women.” (3)

Al-Ṭabarānī related, through the narration of Kathīr ibn Murrah, from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Among the portents of the Hour is that intellects will disappear (4) and sound judgment will diminish.” (5)

Imam Aḥmad said: Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī narrated to us; Bashīr ibn Salmān—who is Abū Ismāʿīl—narrated to us; from Sayyār Abū al-Ḥakam; from Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb, who said: We were sitting with ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd when a man came