- “At the turn of every century, Allah will raise up for this Ummah someone who will renew its religion.”
Abū Dāwūd (4291), Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī in al-Fitan (45/1), al-Ḥākim (4/522), al-Bayhaqī in Maʿrifat al-Sunan wa-l-Āthār (p. 52), al-Khaṭīb in al-Tārīkh (2/61), and al-Harawī in Dhamm al-Kalām (fol. 111/2) recorded it through several routes from Ibn Wahb: Saʿīd ibn Abī Ayyūb informed me, from Sharāḥīl ibn Yazīd al-Maʿāfirī, from Abū ʿAlqamah, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), who said it.
I say: Al-Ḥākim and al-Dhahabī made no comment on it. As for al-Manāwī, he reported that al-Ḥākim declared it authentic. Perhaps this statement was omitted from the printed edition of al-Mustadrak. The chain is authentic; its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s narrators. In the versions of al-Ḥākim and al-Harawī, “Shuraḥbīl” appears in place of “Sharāḥīl,” but I do not consider this preserved. Al-Ḥāfiẓ indicated this in the biography of Shuraḥbīl ibn Sharīk in al-Tahdhīb. And Allah knows best.
The hadith is not rendered defective by Abū Dāwūd’s remark immediately afterward: “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shurayḥ al-Iskandarānī narrated it, but did not take it beyond Sharāḥīl.” This is because Saʿīd ibn Abī Ayyūb is a trustworthy, precise narrator, as stated in al-Taqrīb, and he related it with a continuous chain and attributed it to the Prophet. Thus, this is an addition from a trustworthy narrator that must be accepted.