The Messenger of Allah ﷺ told us, "Before the Hour there will be harj."I asked, "Messenger of Allah, what is harj?"He replied, "Killing."Some of the Muslims said, "Messenger of Allah, we currently kill such and such number of polytheists in a single year."The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "It is not the killing of polytheists. Rather, you will kill one another, until a man kills his neighbor, his cousin, and his relative."Some of the people asked, "Messenger of Allah, will we still have our reason on that day?"The Messenger of Allah ﷺ answered, "No. The reason of most people of that time will be stripped away, and there will remain in their place worthless dregs of humanity who have no reason."Then al-Ashari said, "By Allah, I truly think it will overtake me and you. By Allah, there is no escape for me or for you from it, if it reaches us, according to what our Prophet ﷺ entrusted to us, except that we leave it as we entered it."
حدثنا رسول الله ﷺ: إن بين يدي الساعة لهرجا قال: قلت: يا رسول الله ما الهرج؟ قال: القتل فقال بعض المسلمين: يا رسول الله إنا نقتل الآن في العام الواحد من المشركين كذا وكذا. فقال رسول الله ﷺ: ليس بقتل المشركين ولكن يقتل بعضكم بعضا حتى يقتل الرجل جاره، وابن عمه، وذا قرابته فقال بعض القوم: يا رسول الله ومعنا عقولنا ذلك اليوم؟ فقال رسول الله ﷺ: لا، تنزع عقول أكثر ذلك الزمان، ويخلف له هباء من الناس لا عقول لهم. ثم قال الأشعري: وأيم الله إني لأظنها مدركتي وإياكم، وأيم الله ما لي ولكم منها مخرج، إن أدركتنا فيما عهد إلينا نبينا ﷺ إلا أن نخرج كما دخلنا فيها.
Ibn Majah (3959) narrated it via Awf (that is, Ibn Abu Jamilah Arabi), and Ahmad (19636) narrated it via Yunus (that is, Ibn Ubayd), both of them from Hasan, who said, Usayd bin Mutashamis told us, who said, Abu Musa told us, and he related it.This chain is sahih. However, there is disagreement over its chain of transmission. Some narrated it this way, while others narrated it from Hasan, from Hattan Raqashi, from Abu Musa, as found in Ibn Hibban (6710), and others narrated it from Hasan, from Abu Musa directly. Daraqutni presented this disagreement in al-Ilal (7/236–237) and said, "The preserved view is the statement of those who said, from Hasan, from Usayd bin Mutashamis. As for those who said, from Hasan, from Hattan, their statement is not to be rejected, it is possible that Hasan took it from both of them together. As for those who said, from Hasan, from Abu Musa, he narrated the hadith with a broken chain, so it is neither evidence for him nor against him."I say, more than one scholar has stated explicitly that Hasan Basri did not hear directly from Abu Musa Ashari, among them Ibn Madini, Ibn Main, Abu Zura, Abu Hatim, Tirmidhi, and Daraqutni.