the finest people on earth at that time. When the two sides line up for battle, the Romans will say, “Leave us to fight those who took captives from among us.” The Muslims will reply, “No! By Allah, we will not let you get at our brothers.” Then they will fight them.
[At that point, the fighting will become fierce. The Muslims will form a detachment pledged to fight to the death, returning only victorious. They will fight until night separates them, and both sides will withdraw, neither victorious, while the detachment will be wiped out. Then the Muslims will form another detachment pledged to fight to the death, returning only victorious. They will fight until night separates them, and both sides will withdraw, neither victorious, while the detachment will be wiped out. Then the Muslims will form another detachment pledged to fight to the death, returning only victorious. They will fight until evening, and both sides will withdraw, neither victorious, while the detachment will be wiped out. On the fourth day, the rest of the Muslims will advance against them.]
A third will flee, and Allah will never accept their repentance. A third of them will be killed—[they] are the finest martyrs in Allah’s sight—and the remaining third will conquer and will never be put to trial. [Allah will inflict defeat upon them (that is, the Romans). They will fight a battle of such carnage—he said either, “The like of it will never be seen,” or, “The like of it has never been seen”—that even a bird passing near them will fall dead before it can fly beyond them. The descendants of a single forefather, who had numbered a hundred, will count their survivors and find that only one man remains. What spoils, then, could he rejoice in, or what inheritance could he share?]
They will reach Constantinople and conquer it. (In another version: “Have you heard of a city with one side on land and another in the sea?” They replied, “Yes, Messenger of Allah.”
He said, “The Hour will not come until seventy thousand descendants of Isaac attack it. When they arrive, they will encamp without fighting with weapons or shooting a single arrow. They will say, ‘There is no god but Allah, and Allah is the Greatest.’ Then one of its sides—the one in the sea—will fall. They will say a second time, ‘There is no god but Allah, and Allah is the Greatest,’ and its other side will fall