It is narrated from Sayyiduna Awf bin Malik al-Ashja'i (may Allah be pleased with him) that one day the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) looked towards the sky and said: "This is the time when knowledge will be taken away." A man from the Ansar (who was called Ibn Labid) said: O Messenger of Allah! How will knowledge be taken away when it is recorded in books and hearts have preserved it? The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "I used to think that you were the most learned of the people of Madinah." Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned the misguidance of the Jews and the Christians, that they went astray despite having the Book of Allah with them. (The narrator says:) Then I met Sayyiduna Shaddad bin Aws (may Allah be pleased with him) and told him the hadith of Awf bin Malik. He said: Awf has spoken the truth. Shall I not tell you of the first thing that will be taken away? I said: Of course. He said: It is khushu' (humble devotion), until (a time will come when) you will not see even one person with khushu'. This hadith is sahih (authentic), and the two Shaykhs used all of its narrators as evidence. There is the shahid (supporting narration) of Shaddad bin Aws for it, and Jubayr bin Nufayr heard this hadith from both of them and from a third Companion, namely Abu al-Darda'.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Abu al-Darda' (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: We were with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); he raised his gaze towards the sky and then said: "This is the time when knowledge will be snatched away from people, until they will have no power over any of it." Sayyiduna Ziyad bin Labid al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) said: O Messenger of Allah! How will knowledge be snatched away from us when we have read the Qur'an? By Allah, we will certainly read it and teach it to our women and children. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Ziyad! May your mother be bereaved of you (an Arab idiom). I used to count you among the learned men of Madinah. Look, the Torah and the Gospel are with the Jews and the Christians; so what benefit have these books been to them (when they abandoned acting on them)?" Jubayr says: Then I met Sayyiduna Ubadah bin al-Samit (may Allah be pleased with him) and said to him: Have you not heard what your brother Abu al-Darda' is saying? And I told him what he had said. Ubadah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Abu al-Darda' has spoken the truth. If you wish, I will tell you of the first knowledge that will be taken away from people: it is khushu' (humble devotion). Soon you will enter the congregational mosque and not see even one man there with khushu'. This is a sahih (authentic) chain from the narration of the Egyptians, and in it is a fourth shahid (supporting witness) to the authenticity of the hadith, namely Sayyiduna Ubadah bin al-Samit (may Allah be pleased with him). Someone might imagine that Jubayr bin Nufayr narrated it once from Awf bin Malik and once from Abu al-Darda', which would make the hadith defective (ma'lul), but that is not so, because the narrators of both chains are trustworthy, and Jubayr bin Nufayr is among the senior Successors of Syria. So when the hadith is authentically established from him through both chains, it is clear that he heard it from both Companions. The clear proof of this is that this same hadith is also narrated with a sahih chain from Ziyad bin Labid al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), whose exchange with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is mentioned in both hadiths.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Ziyad bin Labid al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "This is the time of the departure of knowledge" (Shu'bah says that he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "It is the time of the cutting off of knowledge"). The Companions said: How so, when we have the Book of Allah, which we teach to our sons and our sons teach to their sons? He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Ibn Labid! May your mother weep over you. I used to think that you were among the most intelligent people of Madinah. Do the Jews and the Christians not have the Book of Allah, the Torah and the Gospel? Yet they derived no benefit whatsoever from it." With this clear chain of Ziyad bin Labid, this hadith is established beyond doubt.

It is narrated from Zirr bin Hubaysh that he came to Sayyiduna Safwan bin Assal al-Muradi (may Allah be pleased with him) to ask him about something. He (Safwan) asked him: Have you come such a distance to me only for this purpose? He said: Yes, I have come only for this. So he said (giving him glad tidings): Rejoice, for whoever sets out from his home in search of knowledge, the angels spread out their wings for him, pleased with what he is doing, until he returns. This chain is sahih (authentic). Abd al-Wahhab bin Bukht is among the trustworthy Egyptian narrators whose hadith is compiled; the two Shaykhs used him as evidence but did not record this hadith. This hadith revolves around the narration of Asim bin Bahdalah from Zirr, which the two Shaykhs ignored completely; but there are other trustworthy supporting narrators from Zirr bin Hubaysh besides Asim, among them al-Minhal bin Amr, on whom the two Shaykhs agree.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Safwan bin Assal al-Muradi (may Allah be pleased with him) that he came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in the mosque and said: I have come to acquire knowledge. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Indeed the angels spread out their wings for the seeker of knowledge, pleased with what he is doing." Arim (Abu al-Nu'man Muhammad bin al-Fadl al-Basri) is a trustworthy hafiz; Imam Bukhari relied on him and took hadiths from him in the Sahih, although Shayban bin Farrukh differed from him in this hadith and narrated it from al-Sa'q bin Hazn (with a different chain).

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that Sayyiduna Safwan bin Assal al-Muradi (may Allah be pleased with him) related: I came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); then he mentioned the like of the previous hadith.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Safwan bin Assal (may Allah be pleased with him) that Zirr bin Hubaysh came to him. Safwan asked: "What has brought you to me this morning?" He said: "I have come seeking knowledge." Safwan said: "Listen! Whoever sets out, as you have, in search of knowledge, the angels lower their wings for him, pleased with what he does." Abu Janab al-Kalbi narrated it as mawquf (a statement of the Companion), but he does not meet the conditions of this book; however, this does not weaken the hadith, because a group narrated it as marfu' (as a saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)), and those who narrated it as marfu' are better at memorisation, and the addition they narrate is accepted.

It is narrated from Ibn Jurayj that Imam al-A'mash came to Ata (bin Abi Rabah) and asked him about a hadith, and he narrated it to him. We said to Ata: "You narrate this hadith to him even though he is an Iraqi?" (At that time there was rivalry between the scholars of Makkah and Iraq.) Ata said: "Because I heard Sayyiduna Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrate this hadith from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): 'Whoever is asked about some knowledge (which people need) and conceals it, will be brought on the Day of Resurrection bridled with a bridle of fire.'" This is a hadith that is widely known among people through many different chains, and this chain is sahih (authentic) on the condition of the two Shaykhs (Bukhari and Muslim), but they did not record it.

I discussed this chapter with our Shaykh Abu Ali al-Hafiz and asked: "Is any of these chains from Ata authentic?" He said: "No." I asked: "Why?" He said: "Because Ata did not hear it from Sayyiduna Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him)." So we received this hadith in which an unnamed man stands between Ata and Abu Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Whoever is asked about knowledge and conceals it, Allah will bridle him on the Day of Resurrection with a bridle of fire." I said to him: "Azhar bin Marwan or your Shaykh Ibn Ahmad al-Wasiti made an error in this, and an error from either of them is not unlikely."

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Whoever is asked about knowledge that he has and conceals it, Allah Almighty will bridle him with a bridle of fire on the Day of Resurrection." When I presented this chain, Abu Ali al-Hafiz approved of it and accepted my point. Then, when I gathered all the narrations of this chapter, I found a group who mentioned Ata's direct hearing from Sayyiduna Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) in it. We also found this hadith from Abdullah bin Amr (may Allah be pleased with them both) with an authentic chain that has no dust upon it.