by al-Banna and others; rather, it qualifies “saddles.”

This means that the saddles upon which those men will ride in the end times are not actual saddles placed on the backs of horses; rather, they are things resembling camel saddles. If you recall that riḥāl is the plural of raḥl, and that it is defined in al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr and other works as “everything prepared for travel, including a container for baggage and a mount for a camel,” then you will understand, Allah willing, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was alluding to the conveyance invented in this age—namely, cars. They are cushioned, low-riding, and soft, like camel saddles. This is further supported by the fact that, in another hadith cited earlier under no. (93), he, peace and blessings be upon him, called them “houses,” though it later became clear that its chain is disconnected.

Thus, the hadith contains another miraculous prophecy of the unseen, besides the one concerning women who are clothed yet naked: it concerns their men, who ride in cars and alight at the doors of mosques. By Allah, it is indeed a true prophecy that we witness every Friday, when cars gather in front of the mosques until even a broad road is nearly constricted by them. Men alight from them to attend the Friday prayer, yet most of them do not perform the five daily prayers—or, at the very least, do not perform them in the mosques. It is as though they are content with the Friday prayer in place of the prayers. Hence they become numerous on Fridays and get out of their cars in front of the mosques, yet the effect of prayer is not evident in them or in the way they treat their wives and daughters. Their women are truly “clothed yet naked”!

There is another phenomenon to which the hadith applies perfectly: the funeral processions conducted by car that we have seen in recent times. Certain people with no share of goodness—wealthy, indulgent men who neglect the prayer—ride in them. Then, once the vehicle carrying the bier stops and the bier is taken into the mosque for the funeral prayer, those indulgent men remain outside the mosque in