and of staying in his company, except for those whose faith was firmly rooted. As for the hypocrites and the uninformed Bedouins, they could not bear the rigors of Madinah, nor would they hope for reward in doing so—just as that Bedouin who was stricken with fever said, “Release me from my pledge.”

Such were the Qāḍī’s words. Yet what he claimed to be the more apparent view is not actually the more apparent one, because of the previously cited ḥadith of Abū Hurayrah: “The Hour will not be established until Madinah expels its wicked people….” This, and Allah knows best, will take place during the time of the Dajjāl, as is stated in the authentic report recorded by Muslim near the end of his collection in the section “Aḥādīth on the Dajjāl”: the Dajjāl will set out for Madinah, whereupon the city will quake three times, and Allah will thereby drive out of it every disbelieving hypocrite. It is therefore possible that this purging is confined to the era of the Dajjāl, and it is also possible that it will occur at various intervals. Al-Nawawī voiced the same in his commentary on Muslim (9/154).

I say, however, that the stronger view is that this phenomenon was particular to the Prophet’s ﷺ own time, as indicated by the aforementioned report of the Bedouin. Moreover, it happens at certain moments, not continually, for Allah says, “And among the people of Madinah are those who persist in hypocrisy” (9:101). A hypocrite is unquestionably vile, as al-Ḥāfiẓ observed, and he is explicitly intended in Zayd ibn Thābit’s report. Accordingly, the verb “expels” in these aḥādīth denotes repetition, not permanence: it occurred as Allah willed during the Prophet’s ﷺ lifetime and will happen once again in the era of the Dajjāl, as stated in the ḥadith of Anas mentioned earlier. Al-Ḥāfiẓ inclined toward this reading in Fatḥ (4/70), concluding, “As for the period in between—no.”

This, then, is the stronger—indeed the correct—opinion, and actual events bear it out. Allah knows best.