“The two accounts may be reconciled by understanding them to refer to two men, each of whom he kills in a different manner.”

Al-Hāfiz said:

“That is what he said, but the basic presumption is that there was only one man. The version mentioning the saw explains the version mentioning the sword. Perhaps the sword had nicks in its edge, making it like a saw, and his intention was to intensify the man’s torment by killing him in the manner described. The words ‘He struck him with the sword’ would then explain the statement that he sawed him in two, while ‘and cuts him into two pieces’ would refer to the final outcome, when the sawing was complete.”

19 – This passage is supported by two hadiths:
The first is the hadith of al-Nawwās ibn Samʿān cited earlier (pp. 56–58).
The other is the hadith of Asmāʾ bint Yazīd al-Ansāriyyah, also cited earlier (pp. 75–76).

20 – This passage is likewise supported by the two hadiths just mentioned.

21 – This passage is likewise supported by the two hadiths mentioned above.

22 – This passage occurs in hadiths narrated by several Companions:
The first is Anas ibn Mālik, whose hadith will be cited when documenting the sources for passage (24) (p. 90).
The second is Fātimah bint Qays, in the account of al-Jassāsah and the Dajjāl (1) related by Tamīm al-Dārī, which includes the Dajjāl’s words:

(1) Know that this account is authentic—indeed, mass-transmitted. Tamīm al-Dārī was not alone in narrating it, as some ignorant annotators of Ibn Kathīr’s al-Nihāyah imagine (p. 96, Riyadh edition). Abū Hurayrah, ʿĀʾishah and Jābir also narrated it, as will be shown (pp. 83 and 87).