And Ibn Kathīr (1/135) said:

“This chain of transmission is acceptable.”

A version related by Ahmad (6/454), Hanbal (54/1–2), and also ʿAbd al-Razzāq (20822), through Ibn Khuthaym from Shahr, and traced back to the Prophet, reads:

“The Dajjāl will remain on earth for forty years: a year like a month, a month like a week, a week like a day, and a day like a palm frond flaring up in a fire.”

Al-Haythamī (7/347) said:

“It was related by al-Tabarānī, and its chain includes Shahr ibn Hawshab, whose contradiction of the authentic hadiths cannot be accepted: they state that the Dajjāl will remain on earth for forty days, whereas this report says forty years. Its remaining narrators are trustworthy.”

Second: the previously cited hadith of Jābir (pp. 71–73), which includes:

“And Allah will send with him devils who will speak to the people.”

17 – There are several hadiths concerning this:

First: Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave us a lengthy account of the Dajjāl, in which he said:

“The Dajjāl will come, though he is forbidden to enter the passes leading into Medina. That day a man [full of youthful vigor], [one of the believers], will go out to him—the best of people, or among the best of them