Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah 40535 — Reports on Uthman (may Allah be)

It is narrated from Abd al-Rahman, who said: I think it is narrated from Qays bin al-Sakan, who said: Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said on the pulpit: "I overcame the trial. If I had not been among you, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so and the people of al-Nahr would not have been fought. By Allah, if it were not that you would rely on it and abandon deeds, I would tell you what glad tidings the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has given about you, for the one who fights them while perceiving their misguidance and knowing the path we are on." Then he said: "Ask me." Then he said: "Beware, ask me, for whatever you ask me concerning the Hour and what is between you and it, or concerning a force of which a hundred men were guided and a hundred men misguided, I will inform you of its details." Then a man stood up and said: "O Commander of the Believers, tell us about trial." The Commander of the Believers said: "When a questioner asks, he should ask with understanding, and when the one asked is questioned, he should remain firm. After you, great matters are going to occur, and such trials are going to break out as will leave a person blemished and turn his colour pale. By the One who split the seed and created the soul, if you were to lose me and then detestable matters and great trial were to descend, many of those who ask would slip, and many of those who are asked would stand with their necks bowed. That would be when your war has broken out and the fighting has blazed up fiercely, and the world has become a trial for its people, until Allah Almighty opens it for His remaining righteous servants." Then a man stood up and said: "O Commander of the Believers, give us some news about the trial." Sayyiduna Ali said: "When a trial comes, it comes in doubtful form, and when it goes, it returns clear and evident. Indeed, trials circle like the winds: they surround one city and leave another. So help those people who held the banners on the days of Badr and Hunayn, so that you may be helped and given reward. Beware, listen carefully! Indeed, the most frightening trial in my view is the one that will be blind and dark. Its turmoil will be particular, but its trial and affliction will be general. That trial will reach the one who sees it, and it will miss the one who closes his eyes to it. In this trial those upon falsehood will prevail over the people of truth, until the earth is filled with oppression and tyranny. Then the first to break the sheath of this trial, to quell its power and to pull out its pegs will be Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. Listen, after me you will soon have to deal with evil people who will be like an enraged she-camel that bites with its mouth, kicks with its hind leg, strikes with its foreleg too, and does not let its milk be drawn. Listen, this trial will continue upon you until there remains no supporter for you in your city except one who benefits the people of falsehood or is harmless to them, and until the help any of you receives from them is only as much as a master gives his slave (that is, very little help). By Allah, even if they were to scatter you under every star, Allah would gather you on a day in which they have no share." Then a man stood up and said: "O Commander of the Believers, will there be any united community after that?" He said: "No, then there will be different groups, but your stipends, your Hajj and your journeys will be one, and your hearts will differ, like this," and saying this he joined his fingers together. A man asked: "How will this be, O Commander of the Believers?" He said: "People will kill one another. It will be a most terrible trial of ignorance, in which there will be no leader of guidance and no banner that can be seen. We, the People of the House, will be saved from it, and we will not be its callers." Then he said: "O Commander of the Believers, what will happen after that?" Sayyiduna Ali said: "Allah Almighty will remove this trial through a man of the People of the House, as skin is separated from flesh. Then he will subject them to humiliation and make them drink from a cup of torment. At that time Quraysh will wish, at the price of the world and all that is in it, that they could stand before him for as long as it takes to slaughter a camel, so that he might accept from them some of what I offer them today and they reject; but he will refuse anything but killing."