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His predictions · Page 4

The signs of the Hour, down to our day

The Prophet ﷺ described the signs that will come before the Hour. The early scholars already saw some of them in their own time; others are coming into view today; others still are to come, and the believer awaits them.

Signs, not dates

These hadiths name neither place nor date: they are signs. Ibn Kathir counts them among the things of which a part has not yet happened (Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya, I, 227). Other early scholars said that some of them were visible in their own time: al-Qurtubi (d. 656 AH / 1258) and Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH).

We give their reading first, then the facts of today, sourced and dated. We draw no “scientific miracle” from them, and we do not call fulfilled what the figures contradict.

The shepherds who vie in height

Among the signs of the Hour, the Prophet ﷺ foretold the time when “the barefoot, the naked, the destitute, the shepherds of sheep will vie with one another in the height of their buildings” (Muslim 8). Al-Bukhari reports: “until people vie with one another in the height of their buildings” (Bukhari 7121).

The early scholars already saw it under way. Al-Qurtubi: the Bedouins will seize power, grow rich and vie with one another in building, “and all this we have seen with our own eyes” (al-Qurtubi, al-Mufhim, I, 149). Ibn Hajar, two centuries later: “much of this has come about, and it keeps increasing” (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 88).

In our day, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, completed in 2010, rises to 828 m: it is the tallest building in the world (CTBUH, Skyscraper Center, accessed 3 November 2026). In Jeddah, a tower planned at more than 1,000 m is under construction; its completion is expected in 2028 (CTBUH, Skyscraper Center, accessed 3 November 2026). The collections that carry this hadith date from the ninth century: these towers are rising more than a thousand years after it was written down.

Yet the text names neither place nor date, and the race for height is worldwide: among buildings of 350 m or more, China has 48, the United Arab Emirates 16, Saudi Arabia 2 (Wikipedia, List of tallest buildings, accessed 3 November 2026). This sign is coming into view; on its own, it is no proof.

Knowledge passing away, time drawing near

The Prophet ﷺ said: “Knowledge will diminish, ignorance will appear” (Bukhari 81). Al-Qurtubi explains: knowledge goes with the death of the scholars, and ignorant men take charge of teaching and of fatwas; “this has appeared just as he foretold”, he writes of his own time (al-Qurtubi, al-Mufhim, VI, 705; quoted by Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, I, 179). The early scholars understand it of the knowledge of religion. A reading that applied it to secular learning would be contradicted: adult literacy worldwide rose from 65.6% in 1976 to 87.7% in 2024 (World Bank, from UNESCO data, updated 8 October 2026). We do not adopt it.

The Prophet ﷺ said: “Time will draw near, knowledge will be taken away, trials will appear, avarice will be cast into hearts, and killing will increase” (Muslim 157; Bukhari 7121). Ibn Hajar writes: “we find a swiftness in the passing of the days that we did not find before”; the true meaning, in his view, is the withdrawal of blessing from everything, even from time. He also reports from Ibn Abi Jamra that the real shortening has not yet appeared (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 16-17). This is an impression, not a dated fact; and we do not adopt the modern reading that sees in it the speed of transport and communications.

Dhu l-Khalasa: a dated fact, a debated application

Al-Bukhari reports that the women of Daws will once again circle around Dhu l-Khalasa, the idol of their tribe before Islam (Bukhari 7116).

Modern authors see the fulfillment in this. Al-Tuwayjiri writes that the thing came about as the Prophet ﷺ had foretold: the tribes of Tabala had taken up the cult of the place again, which was partly demolished in the time of the first Saudi state, then entirely on the order of King Abd al-Aziz (al-Tuwayjiri, Ithaf al-jama’a, II, 225-226). Rushdi Malhas reports that Daws and their neighbors went back to it, brought it offerings and sacrificed there, and that its walls were pulled down in Rabi’ II 1344, that is, October-November 1925 (Malhas, ed. of al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makka, I, 381-382); al-Tuwayjiri says 1344 or 1345. Since the collection of al-Bukhari was completed before 870, this fact comes more than a thousand years after it was written down.

The application nonetheless remains debated. The early commentators see in it the apostasy of the end of time (al-Qurtubi, al-Mufhim, VII, 244; al-Nawawi, al-Minhaj, XVIII, 33), and Ibn Hajar links it to the hadith of Aisha, which places it after the wind that takes away every believer (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 77). The text speaks of women circling the idol; the modern witnesses, who are late, speak of offerings and sacrifices, without saying that women circled it.

The renewer

The hadith says: “God will send to this community, at the head of every century, someone who will renew its religion for it” (Abu Dawud 4291). Al-Albani judges it authentic; Abu Dawud points out a flaw in one of its chains. Ahmad reports that it was applied to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, at the head of the first century; Ibn Hajar allows several renewers in a century and names al-Shafi’i after him (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 295); Ibn Kathir reports from a group of scholars that it covers all those who hand down knowledge, and adds that such men are found “down to our time” (Ibn Kathir, Mu’jizat, I, 378). Naming the renewer remains a judgment of the scholars, and the lists differ between the schools (Wikipedia, Mujaddid, accessed 3 November 2026). It is a promise, not a proof.

The signs to come

The signs that follow have not yet come to pass. The believer awaits them; we announce them as such, and we do not call them fulfilled when the figures contradict it.

The Romans, the most numerous. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The Hour will come when the Romans are the most numerous of people” (Muslim 2898). Al-Qurtubi takes them to be the Christians, and already observed: “they are today the most numerous in the world, apart from Gog and Magog” (al-Qurtubi, al-Mufhim, VII, 236). In 2020, Christians numbered 2.3 billion, 28.8% of humanity, the largest religious group (Pew Research Center, 9 June 2025). But the hadith describes the state of mankind at the moment of the Hour, and this figure does not fulfill it: the Christian share is falling (down 1.8 points from 2010 to 2020), and in 2015 Pew projected parity with Muslims around 2070, if current trends continue (Pew Research Center, 2 April 2015).

Meadows and rivers. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The Hour will not come until wealth abounds and overflows, so that a man goes out with the zakat of his wealth and finds no one to accept it, and until the land of the Arabs becomes meadows and rivers again” (Muslim 157). Al-Qurtubi reads it as the Arabs leaving nomadic life to plant the land and make water run through it, “as has been seen in many of their countries” (al-Qurtubi, al-Mufhim, III, 57); al-Nawawi, on the contrary, as a land left abandoned, neither tilled nor watered, for lack of men and because of wars (al-Nawawi, al-Minhaj, VII, 97). Saudi wheat had a dated boom, 1.4 million tonnes in 1983 and 3.5 million in 1989, drawn from non-renewable aquifers (Library of Congress, 1992); but it made no rivers, and the program was ended in 2015-2016 to spare the water (World Grain, 18 March 2016). That is not the fulfillment, any more than the idea of an Arabia that was once green, which belongs to the “scientific miracle”.

The Euphrates and the mountain of gold. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The Euphrates will uncover a mountain of gold; people will kill one another over it” (Bukhari 7119; Muslim 2894). Ibn Kathir counts it among things of which a part has not yet happened (Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya, I, 227-229); Ibn Hajar considers that it may appear in the time of the Mahdi, before the descent of Jesus (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 81). The flow of the river has declined (Wikipedia, Euphrates, accessed 3 November 2026), but no mountain of gold has appeared; and the reading that makes this gold into oil is modern, unknown to the early authors.

Fifty women for one man. The hadith says: “Women will become many and men few, so that fifty women will have a single man to look after them” (Bukhari 81). Ibn Hajar sees in it a pure sign: at the end of time, God will cause fewer boys and more girls to be born (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, I, 179); al-Nawawi attributes it to the wars of the end of time (al-Nawawi, al-Minhaj, VII, 96). It is not fulfilled, and we do not say that it is: in 2025, women make up 49.7% of the world’s population (50.1% in 1960), 1.055 boys are born for every girl, and no country exceeds 55% women (World Bank, from UN data, updated 8 October 2026).

Earthquakes. The hadith says: “Earthquakes will be many” (Bukhari 7121). Ibn Hajar notes that many earthquakes have already occurred, “but what appears is that their increase means that they will be general and continuous” (Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, XIII, 87). That is not what we observe: according to the USGS, earthquakes of magnitude 7 or more have remained roughly constant, and the rise in recorded earthquakes is due to the number of stations (USGS, archived 30 June 2014); its catalog counts 148 from 1900 to 1909 and 160 from 2010 to 2019 (USGS, ComCat, accessed 3 November 2026). To say that earthquakes have multiplied in our day would be false: this sign is still to come.

How this page connects to the others

Sources for this page

  • Al-Bukhari: 81; 7116; 7119; 7121.
  • Muslim: 8; 157 (meadows and rivers); 157 (time drawing near); 2894; 2898.
  • Abu Dawud: 4291.
  • Ibn Kathir, al-Nihaya fi l-fitan wa-l-malahim, ed. Muhammad Ahmad Abd al-Aziz, Dar al-Jil, Beirut, 1988, I, 227-229 (Shamela 11818); Mu’jizat al-Nabi ﷺ, ed. al-Sayyid Ibrahim Amin Muhammad, al-Maktaba al-Tawfiqiyya, Cairo, I, 378 (Shamela 23678).
  • Abu l-Abbas al-Qurtubi (d. 656 AH), al-Mufhim li-ma ashkala min talkhis kitab Muslim, ed. Muhyi l-Din Mistu et al., Dar Ibn Kathir and Dar al-Kalim al-Tayyib, Damascus and Beirut, 1996, I, 149; III, 57; VI, 705; VII, 236 and 244.
  • Al-Nawawi (d. 676 AH), al-Minhaj sharh Sahih Muslim, Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-Arabi, Beirut, 2nd ed., VII, 96-97; XVIII, 33 (Shamela 1711).
  • Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH), Fath al-Bari, Dar al-Ma’rifa, Beirut, I, 179; XIII, 16-17, 77, 81, 87-88 and 295 (Shamela 1673).
  • Al-Tuwayjiri, Ithaf al-jama’a, 2nd ed., Dar al-Sumay’i, Riyadh, II, 225-226; Rushdi Malhas, appendix to his edition of al-Azraqi, Akhbar Makka, Dar al-Andalus, Beirut, I, 381-382.
  • Modern figures: CTBUH, Skyscraper Center; World Bank, from UN and UNESCO data (updated 8 October 2026); USGS; Pew Research Center; Library of Congress; World Grain; Wikipedia. Links in the text, accessed 3 November 2026.
  • Research file “His prophecies, from his lifetime to our day”, v1.0, 2 November 2026: third period.