“My ummah will not last more than 1500 years”: is it a hadith?

No. No hadith gives the ummah 1500 years. The number comes from al-Suyuti’s estimate in 898 AH, built on reports of a 7000-year world that Ibn al-Qayyim called a lie. The closest text, graded sahih by al-Albani, promises at least “half a day” and sets no limit. Only Allah knows the Hour (Qur’an 7:187).

Where the number comes from

The figure is built in four steps, and only the first rests on a sound hadith:

1. A hadith about “half a day”. A narration says the ummah will be given at least half a day before its Lord (below).
2. A day of a thousand years. Qur’an 22:47 says a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of your counting, so half a day was read as 500 years.
3. A world of 7000 years. Reports that the whole world lasts 7000 years were used to fix the end point.
4. An estimate. In 898 AH al-Suyuti added up the end-time periods and concluded that the ummah’s span would pass 1000 years, but “the excess does not reach five hundred years”.

In modern times the idea was revived in a book called ’Umr Ummat al-Islam (The Age of the Muslim Ummah), which used numbers to suggest the Hour might come around 1430 AH. That year, 2008 to 2009, has passed. In October 2026 the claim was circulating again on social media, especially in Indonesia.

The hadith of “half a day”

Abu Tha’labah al-Khushani narrates:

Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas narrates a second wording:

Three things are worth knowing about these two reports.

• The “500 years” is not the Prophet’s ﷺ wording. In Abu Dawud it is Sa’d’s answer to a question. In Musnad Ahmad it is Sa’d’s answer in one report (no. 1465) and the Successor Rashid ibn Sa’d’s in another (no. 1464), and al-Albani points to a report of Abu Nu’aym where it is Rashid’s explanation. Some commentators, recorded in ’Awn al-Ma’bud, read Sa’d’s wording as about the wait at the Reckoning; al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir and al-Sakhawi read it as the ummah’s span in this world.
• The graders differ. Al-Hakim graded Abu Tha’labah’s wording sahih, and al-Albani placed it among the authentic hadith (al-Silsilah al-Sahihah 1643). Al-Bukhari, in al-Tarikh al-Kabir, recorded it as Abu Tha’labah’s own words and said its attribution to the Prophet ﷺ is not established. Ibn Hajar reports this, and Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut’s edition of Abu Dawud follows al-Bukhari. Sa’d’s chain in Abu Dawud is broken, al-Albani and al-Arna’ut note, since its narrator Shurayh ibn ’Ubayd never met Sa’d. Al-Albani’s sahih for Sa’d’s report covers the Prophet’s ﷺ words, supported by Abu Tha’labah’s, not the 500 years.
• It is a floor, not a ceiling. Ibn Kathir, who judged the chain of Sa’d’s report good, called it a sign of prophethood, since it meant the ummah would be granted half a day, which is 500 years “as the Companion explained”. He added that this “does not rule out more than that”. Al-Sakhawi wrote that Allah had fulfilled the Prophet’s ﷺ hope.

Scholars who tried to calculate

A few classical scholars did try to work out how much of the world remained. Each one offered his number as an estimate, and other scholars rejected the method.

• Al-Tabari (d. 923) read “half a day” as 500 years remaining in the Prophet’s ﷺ lifetime. With Ibn ’Abbas’s report of a 7000-year world, he put the past at “about six thousand five hundred years, or roughly that and close to it, and Allah knows best”.
• Al-Suhayli (d. 1185), by his own day, noted that the 500 years had passed and that the hadith did not rule out more. He suggested, as only a possibility, that the letters opening some surahs, counted by their number values, might point to 903 years.
• Al-Suyuti (d. 1505) wrote his treatise al-Kashf in 898 AH to answer a fatwa that placed the Mahdi, the Dajjal and the Hour before 1000 AH. That, he said, was impossible. Counting the periods he found in the reports, he concluded that the span “cannot be one thousand five hundred years at all”. In a note added later, from a saying of Wahb ibn Munabbih, he guessed at about 1400.
• Mulla ’Ali al-Qari (d. 1606) suggested, with a “perhaps”, that the 500 years might come after the world’s seventh thousand, which he believed had just ended: “today we are in the seventh year of the eighth thousand.”

Every one of these rested on the 7000-year reports. Ibn Hajar called the hadith that says “the world is seven thousand years, and I am in its last thousand” very weak, and noted that Ibn al-Jawzi listed it among fabrications. Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350) was blunter:

The hadith about the length of the world, that it is seven thousand years and we are in the seventh thousand, is among the plainest of lies. If it were true, everyone would know that two hundred and fifty-one years remain from our time until the Hour.

He quotes it in al-Manar al-Munif as an example of a report that contradicts the Qur’an, and answers it with Qur’an 7:187.

Every date has passed

The strongest answer to the 1500 claim is the record. Scholars recorded, one after another, dates that came and went:

• 500 years after the Prophet ﷺ. Qadi ’Iyad (d. 1149) wrote that this reading “has been shown to be wrong, because the opposite happened and that span was passed”. Ibn Hajar added that 300 more years had passed since ’Iyad.
• 693 or 903 years, from the letters that open the surahs. Ibn Hajar answered that 693 had passed 145 years before his time, and that Ibn ’Abbas had rebuked this kind of letter counting, which, Ibn Hajar wrote, “has no basis in the Shari’ah”. The 903 years, counted from the mission, the hijrah or the Prophet’s ﷺ death as al-Suhayli allowed, ran out by about 914 AH (1508).
• 1000 AH. A saying that the Prophet ﷺ would not remain a thousand years in his grave was popular for centuries before 1000 AH. Al-Suyuti called it “false, with no basis”; Ibn Kathir and al-Sakhawi said the same. 1000 AH arrived in 1591.
• 1407, from the number value of the word baghtatan, “unexpectedly”, in Qur’an 7:187, read as the year 1407 AH. Al-Alusi (d. 1854) called it “among the strangest things I have seen”. 1407 AH arrived in 1986.
• About 1400 AH, al-Suyuti’s own later guess. 1400 AH arrived in 1979.
• 1430 AH, the modern book’s date. It arrived in 2008.

Al-Alusi tested al-Suyuti’s scheme in his own century. Counting from the Prophet’s ﷺ mission and adding al-Suyuti’s 200 fixed years, he reckoned that only 22 years of the maximum were left, and none of the major signs had begun. “The truth,” he concluded, “is that no one knows what remains of the world’s span except Allah.”

What classical scholars said

The scholars who answered these estimates did so on the same ground: the Qur’an and the Sunnah keep the time of the Hour with Allah.

• Ibn al-’Arabi (d. 1148), quoted by Ibn Hajar: since no one knows the length of the world, “the correct course is to turn away from that”.
• Ibn Kathir (d. 1373) wrote that no one but Allah knows exactly how much remains, and that every hadith fixing the time of the Day of Resurrection has an unestablished chain. On Qur’an 72:25 he added that when the Prophet ﷺ was asked about its time, he would not give one.
• Ibn Hajar (d. 1449) judged fabricated a report, used by al-Suhayli, that the ummah would last a full day if it did well and half a day if it did badly. Its only source was a known forger.
• Al-Sakhawi (d. 1497), al-Suyuti’s contemporary in Cairo: every report fixing the time of the Hour either has no basis or an unestablished chain, “and the truth is that no one knows its reality except Allah”.
• Al-Qastallani (d. 1517), after summarising al-Suyuti’s treatise, quoted Ibn Kathir that no sound hadith fixes the time of the Hour, cited Qur’an 7:187 and “the one asked about it knows no more than the one asking”, and concluded: “so going deep into it brings no benefit”.
• Mar’i al-Karmi (d. 1624), quoted by al-Saffarini: whoever speaks on this “is only guessing, with no proof to stand on”.

What contemporary scholars say

• Shaykh Ibn Baz (d. 1999), asked about a pamphlet that dated the end of the world from the letters opening the surahs: “All the scholars agree that no one knows the Hour except Allah alone ... whoever says the Hour will be on such a day, or after such a day, or at such an hour, or in such a year, this is ignorance and misguidance ...”
• Shaykh Ibn ’Uthaymin (d. 2001): “There is no fixing of the time of the Hour in the Qur’an or the Sunnah.” Every prediction of it is guesswork. Allah showed its signs and hid its time, he wrote, as He hides each person’s death, so that people keep doing good.
• Shaykh al-Albani (d. 1999) separated the “half a day” wording, which he accepted, from the “500 years”, which he noted is Sa’d’s own saying in Musnad Ahmad and Rashid ibn Sa’d’s in one of Abu Nu’aym’s reports. A later rebuttal of the 1430 book, al-Radd al-Amin, points out that the book claimed al-Albani’s support for the 500 years, although al-Albani authenticated only the Prophet’s ﷺ “half a day” wording, not the 500 years as the Prophet’s words.
• Shaykh Hasan Abu al-Ashbal, a hadith teacher in Egypt, answered the same book: it used “the language of numbers, a language not known in Allah’s religion”, to name a year for the Hour. He spoke of its author kindly while rejecting the method.
• Mawlana Muhammad Abasoomar of HadithAnswers in South Africa: “I haven’t seen this Hadith in the popular Hadith books”, and al-Suyuti himself cites no narration with these words.

What institutions say

• IslamQA (Saudi Arabia), answer 33689: the view is al-Suyuti’s; some of his evidence is Isra’iliyyat and the rest weak or fabricated; and if it were true, everyone would know when the Hour will come.
• Islamweb Fatwa Centre (Qatar), fatwa 355765: “We have not come across a hadeeth determining the lifespan of this Ummah ... Rather, it is nothing but guessing.” In fatwa 125310 it says the ummah’s span extends until the Hour itself.
• Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah (South Africa), on Askimam: “The above statement is not a hadith”; it is al-Suyuti’s opinion, which other scholars refuted.
• Jamia Binoria (Karachi): no narration in the authentic hadith books says Islam will last 1500 years.
• NU Online (Indonesia), the official site of Nahdlatul Ulama, in a 2020 article by KH Muhammad Taufik Damas of NU’s Jakarta board answering a rumour about the Hour: no one knows when it will come, not even the Prophet ﷺ, so anyone who names its time is making it up, and any hadith he quotes should be checked.

What the Qur’an and Sunnah say about the Hour

Even when the angel Jibril asked the Prophet ﷺ, in front of his Companions, he gave its signs but no date:

He also said, “I and the Hour were sent like this”, pointing with two of his fingers held out (Bukhari 6503, sahih (al-Bukhari); our translation). The Hour is near; how near, no one knows. Qur’an 33:63 and 79:42-44 say the same.

What to share instead

Common questions

Read next: “Teach your children swimming, archery and horse riding”: where it comes from

Sources

1. Al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak ’ala al-Sahihayn (Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah, 1990), nos. 8306-8307, 4/470-471, with al-Dhahabi’s notes (Arabic). shamela.ws
2. Al-Albani, Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Sahihah, no. 1643, 4/197-198: the grading, the broken chain of Sa’d’s report, and who said “500 years” (Arabic). shamela.ws
3. Musnad Ahmad (Mu’assasat al-Risalah edition), nos. 1464-1465 and 17734, with the notes of Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut and his co-editors (Arabic). shamela.ws and shamela.ws
4. Sunan Abi Dawud, ed. Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut (Dar al-Risalah al-’Alamiyyah), 6/404-406, notes on nos. 4349-4350 (Arabic). shamela.ws
5. Al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, entry on Abu Tha’labah al-Khushani (OpenITI text, Arabic). github.com/OpenITI
6. Al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, 1/16-17 (Arabic). shamela.ws
7. Al-Suhayli, al-Rawd al-Unuf, ed. al-Salami, 4/239-241 (Arabic). shamela.ws
8. Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, on “I and the Hour were sent like these two”, 11/350-352: Qadi ’Iyad, Ibn al-’Arabi, al-Tabari, al-Suhayli and the fabricated report (Arabic). shamela.ws
9. Al-Suyuti, al-Kashf ’an Mujawazat Hadhihi al-Ummah al-Alf, in al-Hawi lil-Fatawi (Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah, 2000), 2/81-87 (OpenITI text, Arabic). raw.githubusercontent.com
10. Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Manar al-Munif, no. 142, p. 80 (OpenITI text, Arabic). raw.githubusercontent.com
11. Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah, ed. al-Turki, 9/297 and 19/31 (Arabic). shamela.ws and shamela.ws
12. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, on Qur’an 72:25-26, ed. al-Salamah, 8/246-247 (Arabic). shamela.ws
13. Al-Sakhawi, al-Maqasid al-Hasanah, no. 1243, pp. 693-694 (Arabic). shamela.ws
14. Al-Qastallani, Irshad al-Sari, on “I and the Hour were sent like these two”, 9/293-294 (Arabic). shamela.ws
15. Al-Saffarini, Lawami’ al-Anwar al-Bahiyyah, 2/66, quoting Mar’i al-Karmi (Arabic). shamela.ws
16. Mulla ’Ali al-Qari, Mirqat al-Mafatih, 10/170-171 (OpenITI text, Arabic). github.com/OpenITI
17. Al-Alusi, Ruh al-Ma’ani, on Qur’an 47:18 (Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah), 13/209-210 (OpenITI text, Arabic). raw.githubusercontent.com
18. Ibn Baz, fatwa 1109, on fixing the end of the world to a set time (Arabic). binbaz.org.sa
19. Ibn ’Uthaymin, Majmu’ Fatawa wa Rasa’il, 2/72-73 (Arabic). shamela.ws
20. Hasan Abu al-Ashbal, al-Difa’ ’an Allah wa Rasulihi wa Shar’ih, lectures, on ’Umr Ummat al-Islam (Arabic). shamela.ws
21. Abu ’Amr Sharif Murad, al-Radd al-Amin ’ala Kutub ’Umr Ummat al-Islam wa Radd al-Siham wa al-Qawl al-Mubin (Arabic). shamela.ws
22. HadithAnswers, “Is the Total Lifespan of This Ummah 1500 Years?”, 25 August 2016. hadithanswers.com
23. Askimam (Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah), “The life of my community will not exceed 1500 years: true or fake?” islamqa.org
24. Jamia Binoria, “Islam will last for 1500 years?” islamqa.org
25. IslamQA, answer 33689, on reports fixing the age of the world (Arabic). islamqa.info
26. Islamweb Fatwa Centre, fatwa 355765, “No hadeeth determined lifespan of Muslim nation” (English), and fatwa 125310, “’Umr Ummat al-Islam ila Qiyam al-Sa’ah” (Arabic). islamweb.net and islamweb.net
27. NU Online, “Penjelasan Al-Qur’an soal Kepastian Bulan dan Tahun Peristiwa Kiamat”, 8 May 2020 (Indonesian). nu.or.id
28. JawaPos, “Benarkah 1500 Hijriah Akan Terjadi Kiamat?”, 18 October 2026, on the claim circulating on Indonesian social media (Indonesian). jawapos.com
29. AlAdhan, Hijri to Gregorian conversion by the Umm al-Qura calendar, 1 Muharram 1500. api.aladhan.com

Qur’an and hadith on this page

• Qur’an 7:187
• Bukhari 50, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 6171, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Bukhari 6503, sahih (al-Bukhari)
• Muslim 2639, sahih (Muslim)
• Abu Dawud 4349, sahih (al-Albani); isnad sahih (Zubair Ali Zai)
• Abu Dawud 4350, sahih (al-Albani); da’if (Zubair Ali Zai)