- “O Allah, bless us in our Makkah; O Allah, bless us in our Madinah; O Allah, bless us in our Greater Syria; bless us in our sāʿ measures and bless us in our mudd measures.” A man said, “O Messenger of Allah, and in our Iraq?” But he turned away from him and repeated it three times. Each time the man said, “And in our Iraq?” and he turned away from him. Then he said, “Therein are earthquakes and tribulations, and therein the horn of Satan rises.”
It was recorded by Yaʿqūb al-Fasawī in al-Maʿrifah (2/746–748), al-Mukhalliṣ in al-Fawāʾid al-Muntaqāh (7/2–3), al-Jurjānī in al-Fawāʾid (164/2), Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah (6/133), and Ibn ʿAsākir in Tārīkh Dimashq (1/120), through several chains from Tawbah al-ʿAnbarī, from Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from his father: the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, supplicated and said the foregoing.
I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission, meeting the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Ziyād ibn Bayān also corroborated him: Sālim narrated it to us with the same wording. It was recorded by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ (1/246/1/4256), Abū ʿAlī al-Qushayrī al-Ḥarrānī in Tārīkh al-Raqqah (2/20/1–2), al-Rabʿī in Faḍāʾil al-Shām wa-Dimashq (11/20), and Ibn ʿAsākir (1/121–122). Al-Ṭabarānī said: “No one narrated it from Ziyād except Ismāʿīl, and only his son Ḥammād transmitted it from him.” That is what he said! Yet Ibn ʿAsākir records it through the route of Sulaymān ibn ʿUmar ibn Khālid al-Aqṭaʿ, who said: Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm—namely Ibn ʿUlayyah—narrated it to us with the same wording. Al-Qushayrī records it through the route of al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Ibrāhīm, who said: Ziyād ibn Bayān narrated it to us with the same wording. I say: Ziyād ibn Bayān—the man of al-Raqqah—was truthful and a devout worshipper, as al-Ḥāfiẓ states in al-Taqrīb,