"al-Muṣannaf" (15/62/19117), and Aḥmad (2/351 and 529-530) — and the addition is his — through the routes from Wahīb: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāwūs narrated to us from his father from Abū Hurayrah from the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) who said ... and he mentioned it. Wahīb here is Ibn Khālid ibn ʿAjlān al-Bāhilī, their client, Abū Bakr al-Baṣrī: trustworthy and reliable, though he experienced a slight change in his later years, which did not harm him significantly or otherwise; especially in this ḥadīth, for it has a sound witness from the ḥadīth of Zaynab bint Jaḥsh (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhā) with the two Shaykhs and others, and it includes a description of Wahīb's gesture with the words: "and he circled with his thumb and the one next to it." Its extraction has already been mentioned under number (987). The ḥadīth strongly indicates that the barrier will be opened for Gog and Magog on the day Allāh permits them, as in His saying: "When my Lord's promise comes, He will make it level, and my Lord's promise is true" (Sūrah al-Kahf, verse 98), and the explicit mention of this opening is in a sound ḥadīth whose extraction has been mentioned under number (1735), and it details the indicated opening, and that they will dig it and emerge upon the people. Although its isnād is authentic, and a group of ḥadīth scholars have authenticated it as previously explained there, including the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr, this has been claimed to be a rejected text contradicting His saying: "They could neither scale it nor dig through it" (Sūrah al-Kahf, verse 97), which is a strange error from him (raḥimahu Allāh); because the negation is about the past, and the affirmation in the ḥadīth is about the future; as I explained in my response to him there, and it is evident to anyone with intellect and understanding, so it is no wonder that ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr himself retracted that claim and responded with a similar answer to the one I gave earlier, and despite all this; Shaykh Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ persisted in his commentary