al-Musannaf (15/62/19117), and Ahmad (2/351 and 529–530)—with the additional wording found in Ahmad—through several routes from Wuhayb: ʿAbd Allah ibn Tawus narrated to us from his father, from Abu Hurayrah, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who said ... and he then related it.
This Wuhayb was Wuhayb ibn Khalid ibn ʿAjlan al-Bahili, their client, Abu Bakr al-Basri: trustworthy and highly reliable. He underwent a slight decline late in life, but this does not detract from his reliability in the least—especially in the case of this hadith, for it has an authentic corroborating report from the hadith of Zaynab bint Jahsh, may Allah be pleased with her, recorded by al-Bukhari and Muslim and others. It describes Wuhayb’s gesture in the words:
“He formed a circle with his thumb and forefinger.”
Its documentation has previously appeared under no. 987.
The hadith contains a strong indication that the barrier restraining Gog and Magog will be opened when Allah permits them to do so, as in His saying, Exalted is He:
“So when the promise of my Lord comes, He will make it level; and the promise of my Lord is true.”
The opening mentioned explicitly occurs in an authentic hadith whose documentation has previously appeared under no. 1735. It details the opening referred to: they dig through it and emerge upon the people. Although its chain of transmission is authentic, and a number of hadith masters—as previously explained there, including al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir—declared it authentic, Ibn Kathir, may Allah have mercy on him, claimed that its text was rejected, contradicting His saying:
“So they were unable to surmount it, nor were they able to pierce through it.”
This was a strange error on his part, for the negation in the verse concerns what had already occurred, whereas what the hadith affirms concerns what is yet to come—as I explained in my response to him there. This is self-evident and cannot escape anyone possessed of reason and sound understanding. Accordingly, al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir himself retracted that claim and replied along the same lines as I have just stated. Yet, despite all this, Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾut stubbornly persisted in his commentary