And in another version transmitted by Ahmad (2/483), the wording is:

“Medina and Mecca are surrounded by angels at every approach to them…”

Another version, recorded by Muslim and also by Abū Yaʿlā (292/2—the office’s photographic copy), reads:

“The Dajjāl will come from the east, intent on Medina, until he encamps behind Mount Uhud. Then the angels will turn him towards the Levant, and there he will perish.”

The fifth is Abū Bakrah al-Thaqafī, who said:

People spoke much about Musaylimah before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had said anything about him. Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood to address them, saying:

“To proceed: concerning this man about whom you have spoken so much, he is a liar, one of thirty liars who will appear before the Hour. There is no town that the terror of the Dajjāl will not reach except Medina. At each of its approaches are two angels who protect it from the terror of the Dajjāl.”

Recorded by ʿAbd al-Razzāq (20823) and Ahmad (5/41 and 47), the latter through him and others, from Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from Talhah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAwf, from Abū Bakrah.

I say: This chain of transmission appears authentic, for its narrators are trustworthy and are all among al-Bukhārī’s narrators. However, two trustworthy narrators differed from Maʿmar: ʿUqayl—namely, Ibn Khālid al-Aylī—and Ibn Shihāb’s nephew, whose name was Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim. Both reported it from Ibn Shihāb, from Talhah, who stated that ʿIyād ibn Musāfiʿ had narrated it to him from Abū Bakrah.

Recorded by Ahmad (5/46).