of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say”—then he mentioned it.

Al-Haythami said (8/116): “Ahmad and al-Bazzar narrated it through several routes, one of which contains an unnamed narrator.”

I say: The second route, that of Abu Hayyan—whose name was Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Taymi—contains no unnamed narrator. Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Qattan narrated it from him, and he narrated it from Mujammiʿ, who was Mujammiʿ ibn Yahya ibn Yazid al-Ansari, from Saʿd. This is a chain whose narrators are all reliable and among Muslim’s narrators, so it is authentic if Mujammiʿ heard it from Saʿd.

Al-Haythami then said:

“The best of these is what Ahmad narrated from Zayd ibn Aslam, from Saʿd, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘The Hour will not come until there emerge people who eat with their tongues as cattle eat with their tongues.’ Its narrators are those of the authentic collections, except that Zayd ibn Aslam did not hear from Saʿd. And Allah knows best.”

I say: Zayd ibn Aslam’s route is found in Ahmad (1/184): Surayj ibn al-Nuʿman narrated to us; ʿAbd al-ʿAziz—that is, al-Darawardi—narrated to us from him.

This is a chain whose narrators are reliable and among al-Bukhari’s narrators, apart from al-Darawardi, who was among Muslim’s narrators. However, it is interrupted, as al-Haythami mentioned.

In sum, by virtue of these routes, the hadith is good, if Allah wills—or authentic—for it has a corroborating report from the hadith of ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr, attributed to the Prophet, with similar wording.

Al-Tirmidhi narrated it and graded it good; its documentation will follow under no. 878.