5 – “Prophethood will remain among you for as long as Allah wills, then Allah will remove it when He wills to remove it. After that there will be a caliphate upon the prophetic model; it will last for as long as Allah wills, then He will remove it when He wills to remove it. Then there will be biting kingship, lasting for as long as Allah wills, then He will remove it when He wills to remove it. Next there will be coercive kingship; it will last for as long as Allah wills, then He will remove it when He wills to remove it. Finally, there will be a caliphate upon the prophetic model.” He then fell silent.

It was transmitted by Aḥmad (4/273): “Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī narrated to us; Dāwūd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Wāsiṭī narrated to us; Ḥabīb ibn Sālim narrated from al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, who said:

‘We were seated in the mosque, and Bashīr was a man who spoke little. Abū Thaʿlabah al-Khushani came and said, “O Bashīr ibn Saʿd, do you remember the Messenger of Allah’s ﷺ hadith concerning the rulers?” Ḥudhayfah replied, “I remember his sermon.” So Abū Thaʿlabah sat down and Ḥudhayfah related it, tracing it back to the Prophet ﷺ.

Ḥabīb continued: When ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz assumed office—and Yazīd, the son of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, was among his companions—I wrote this hadith to him to remind him of it, saying, “I hope that the Commander of the Believers—meaning ʿUmar—will be the one who comes after the biting and the coercive kingships.” My letter was taken in to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and it made him happy and pleased him.’

Through Aḥmad’s chain, the hadith was also reported by the ḥadith master al-ʿIrāqī in al-Maḥajjah al-Qurba ilá Maḥabbat al-ʿArab (17/2). He said, “This is a sound hadith, and Ibrāhīm ibn Dāwūd al-Wāsiṭī was declared reliable by Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī.”