in another hadith that they will continue to emerge until the time of the Dajjāl. The Muslims agree that the Khawārij are not confined to that particular army. Moreover, the characteristics he described also apply to others besides that army.

For this reason, the Companions narrated the hadith without restricting its application, as in the report in the two Sahīhs from Abū Salama and ʿAtāʾ ibn Yasār. They went to Abū Saʿīd and asked him about the Harūriyya: “Did you hear the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, mention them?”

He replied: “I do not know. But the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

‘There will emerge within this community—he did not say “from it”—people whose prayer will make you regard your own prayer as insignificant. They recite the Quran, but it does not pass beyond their throats or gullets. They pass out of the religion as an arrow passes through its quarry. The archer examines his arrow, its head and its sinew bindings, and wonders whether any blood has clung to its nock.’”

This is Muslim’s wording.

Also in the two Sahīhs, Abū Saʿīd reported:

“While the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was distributing something, ʿAbd Allah Dhū al-Khuwaysira al-Tamīmī came—in another version, Dhū al-Khuwaysira, a man from Banū Tamīm, came to him—and said: ‘Be just, O Messenger of Allah!’

He replied: ‘Woe to you! Who would be just if I were not just? You would indeed have failed and lost if I were not just.’

ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb said: ‘Allow me to strike off his head.’

He said: ‘Leave him alone. He has companions whose prayer will make any one of you regard his own prayer as insignificant, and whose fasting will make him regard his own fasting as insignificant. They pass out of the religion as an arrow passes through its quarry. The archer looks at its head, but nothing is found on it