al-Ishaa li-Ashrat al-Saa
- Author died
- 1103 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Minhāj lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
al-Isha‘ah li-Ashrat al-Sa‘ah (Arabic: الإشاعة لأشراط الساعة, lit. 'The Proclamation of the Portents of the Hour') is an eschatological treatise authored by the Shafi‘i scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rasul al-Barzanji (1040–1103 AH / 1630–1691 CE), cataloging and examining Islamic traditions regarding the signs and portents preceding the Day of Judgment .
Background and Purpose
Al-Barzanji was motivated to compose the work after observing that Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti had expressed an intention in his treatise Sharh al-Sudur to write a comprehensive work on the portents of the Hour to complement his books on the afterlife, yet no dedicated work on the subject by al-Suyuti had appeared . Al-Barzanji intended this treatise to serve as an exhaustive treatment spanning the interval between death and the final resurrection, presenting the signs of the Hour as an awakening for believers before the onset of the Day of Judgment .
Structure and Contents
The work opens with an introduction citing relevant Quranic verses and prophetic traditions regarding the proximity of the Hour, followed by three primary chapters arranged chronologically by the nature and timing of the signs :
- Chapter One (al-Bab al-Awwal): Covers distant portents that have already occurred and concluded, beginning with the death of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and the emergence of early tribulations .
- Chapter Two (al-Bab al-Thani): Details intermediate signs that have appeared and continue to persist, multiply, and unfold over time, such as social and religious corruption, the loss of trust, and competition in building mosques .
- Chapter Three (al-Bab al-Thalith): Focuses on major, imminent portents directly preceding the Hour. Al-Barzanji places the advent of the Mahdi as the first among these major signs, asserting that the numerous narrations confirming his lineage from Fatima and his end-time emergence have reached the level of thematic mass-transmission (tawatur ma‘nawi) . This chapter also discusses subsequent major events, including the emergence of the Antichrist (al-Dajjal), the descent of Jesus (Isa), the appearance of Gog and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj), the Beast of the Earth, and the rising of the sun from the west .
Method and Reception
Al-Barzanji relied on scriptural texts, hadith collections, and classical commentaries, synthesizing various transmissions and drawing from earlier scholars such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, and Ali al-Qari . Later scholars acknowledged the book for its broad scope and systematic thematic arrangement, though critics noted that it gathers weak and disputed narrations alongside authentic ones without consistently evaluating their chains of transmission . The book has been published in multiple printings, including an edition issued with marginal annotations by the Indian hadith scholar Muhammad Zakariyya al-Kandahlawi and verified by Husayn Muhammad Ali Shukri .
Answer updated