for some of them give the call to prayer before its time, while others do so after its time. This is something we have witnessed with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. Muslims must therefore adhere to the prescribed call to prayer, whose time differs from one land to another, and perform the acts of worship at their prescribed times.

3952 — “My community will come to me at the Basin, and I will drive people away from it just as a man drives another man’s camels away from his own camels.” They asked, “O Prophet of Allah, will you recognize us?” He said, “Yes. You will have a distinguishing mark that no one else has: you will come to me with radiant faces and limbs from the traces of minor ablution.

“A group from among you will surely be turned away from me and will not reach it. I shall say, ‘My Lord, these are my companions!’ An angel will answer me, saying, ‘Do you know what they introduced after you?’”

I say: This is an authentic hadith narrated on the authority of Abu Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him. It has several chains of transmission and textual variants from him, some lengthy like this one and others abridged. The details follow:

The first chain: through Abu Hazim, from Abu Hurayrah, attributed to the Prophet, to the same effect.

It was recorded by Muslim (1/150)—the wording being his—Abu ʿAwanah (1/137), and al-Bayhaqi in al-Baʿth wa al-Nushūr (Resurrection and Gathering) (102/158).

The second: through Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib, from Abu Hurayrah, who would relate—in another version through Ibn al-Musayyib, it reads, “he related”—that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“A group of my companions will come to me on the Day of Resurrection, but they will be driven away from the Basin. I shall say, ‘My Lord, my companions!’ He will say, ‘You have no knowledge of what they introduced after you; they turned back on their heels, retreating.’”