It was transmitted by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ (3924). Its chain of transmission is weak: Ghānim ibn al-Aḥwaṣ is unknown, as Abū Ḥātim stated, and the chain leading to him is obscure. The first sentence of it has a supporting report from the hadith of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd, attributed to the Prophet, with the same wording. Al-Ṭabarānī also transmitted it (5199).

1893 — “At the end of time, there will be men in this Ummah carrying whips like cows’ tails. They set out under Allah’s displeasure and return under His wrath.”

Aḥmad (5/250), al-Ḥākim (4/436), Ibn al-Aʿrābī in his Muʿjam (213–214), and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (no. 8000) transmitted it from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Buḥayr, from Sayyār, from Abū Umāmah, attributed to the Prophet. Al-Ḥākim said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic.” Al-Dhahabī agreed with him, and it is as they said. Ibn Buḥayr is Ibn Ḥimrān al-Tamīmī al-Baṣrī.

Concerning the hadith, al-Haythamī (5/234) said: “It was transmitted by Aḥmad and by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsaṭ and al-Kabīr. In one of al-Ṭabarānī’s versions, there is: ‘Beware, then, lest you be among their close associates.’ The narrators of Aḥmad are trustworthy.” This version is found in al-Ṭabarānī (7616): Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamzah al-Dimashqī narrated to us; Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ al-Ḥimṣī narrated to us; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh narrated to us, from Shuraḥbīl ibn Muslim, from Abū Umāmah, with it. This Shuraḥbīl is truthful, though he has some weakness, as stated in al-Taqrīb.