340 – ʿAbdullāh narrated to us; he said: al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ informed me; he said: Abū Tawbah, al-Rabīʿ ibn Nāfiʿ, narrated to us; he said: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from ⦗216⦘ Saʿīd ibn Ghunaym al-Kalāʿī, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm, from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“The Hour will not be established until the Book of Allah is treated as a disgrace, Islam becomes a stranger, obesity appears among the people, knowledge diminishes, time grows feeble, human life-spans shorten, the years and their harvests shrink, the suspected are trusted, the liar is believed, the truthful is disbelieved, and killing becomes rampant.”

They asked, “What is killing (al-harj), O Messenger of Allah?” He said, “Blood-shed, blood-shed—until lofty chambers are erected and people vie in raising them higher; mothers of children grieve while barren women rejoice; oppression, envy, and avarice become manifest; knowledge retreats still further and ignorance floods forth; children provoke anger, winter feels like the heat of midsummer; obscenities are proclaimed openly, and the earth is shaken with a violent shaking.”