Foretelling the capture of Basra and the Mongol conquest

About important happenings at Baṣrah

O Aḥnaf! It is as though I see him advancing with an army which has neither dust nor noise, nor rustling of reins, nor neighing of horses. They are trampling the ground with their feet as if they are the feet of ostriches.

as-Sayyid ar-Raḍī says : Amīr al-mu’minīn pointed to the Chief of the Negroes, (Ṣāḥibu’z-Zanj). [1]

Then Amīr al-mu’minīn said : Woe to you (the people of Baṣrah’s) inhabited streets and decorated houses which possess wings like the wings of vultures and trunks like the trunks of elephants; they are the people from among whom if one is killed he is not mourned and if one is lost he is not searched for. I turn this world over on its face, value it only according to its (low) value, and look at it with an eye suitable to it.

[A part of the same sermon referring to the Turks (Mongols) :] I [2] can see a people whose faces are like shields covered with rough-scraped skins. They dress themselves in silken and woollen clothes and hold dear excellent horses. Their killing and bloodshed shall take place freely till the wounded shall walk over the dead and the number of runners-away shall be less than those taken prisoner:

One of his companions said to him: O Amīr al-mu’minīn, you have been given knowledge of hidden things. hereupon Amīr al-mu’minīn laughed and said to the man who belonged to the tribe of Banū Kalb :

O brother of Kalb! This is not knowledge of hidden things (‘ilmu’l-ghayb ), [3] these matters have been acquired from him (namely in Prophet) who knew them. As regard knowledge of hidden things, that means knowledge of the Day of Judgement, and the things covered by Allāh in the verse : Verily, Allāh is He with Whom is the knowledge of the Hour . . . (Qur’ān, 31:34)

Therefore, Allāh alone knows what is there in the wombs, whether male or female, ugly or handsome, generous or miserly, mischievous or pious, and who will be the fuel for Hell and who will be in the company of the Prophets in Paradise. This is the knowledge of the hidden things which is not known to anyone save Allāh. All else is that whose knowledge Allāh passed on to His Prophet and he passed it on to me, and prayed for me that my bosom may retain it and my ribs may hold it.