Miscellaneous by Al-Albani-295

The Shaykh : The author (may Allah have mercy on him) said: This is the twenty-fifth hadith. From Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Al-Tabarani narrated it, and its narrators are relied upon in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, and al-Hakim said: "The chain is authentic." Its wording is: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This hadith is hasan (good), and it has two wordings as you have seen. The second wording is more complete than the first in both wording and meaning. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This phrase, as you all know, is taken from the text of the Noble Qur'an: This verse will come in full in a later hadith, if Allah wills: But the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned here the first part of the verse, so he said: If one of you has a copy of al-Targhib, his copy may be like mine here: which is an error. The correct version, as indicated by the context and by referring to the original sources, is: meaning "people," who are explicitly mentioned in the preceding part of the hadith where he (peace be upon him) said: The purpose of the hadith is clear: although the Hour has drawn near, as our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) informed us in the verse, people are contrary to this warning with which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) warned them when He said: Instead of being concerned with the occurrence and establishment of the Hour—and this concern necessitates preparing for death before it descends—what do people do instead of this preparation? They do not increase in their desire for this world except greed, as if the Hour had moved away from them and not drawn near. Therefore, in the first narration, when he said: meaning in their behavior, in their lack of preparation for the establishment of the Hour, as if the Hour does not increase in their estimation except in distance. Therefore, they are not concerned, but rather they are concerned with the opposite of what this divine warning necessitates from them, from His saying: preparing for death and doing righteous deeds. They are contrary to that; they do not increase except in greed for this world, accumulating it, and competing for it. And thereby, they do not increase from Allah except in distance. Every Muslim must know that when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) informs us of the nearness of the Hour and the approach of its minor signs, let alone the major ones, He means to warn the living that the Hour may overtake them before the repentant among them repents, and before the wretched one turns from his evil deeds to righteous deeds. So His saying (Mighty and Majestic): means "prepare for it." The Hour is near, but people—meaning most people, as stated in this hadith: This is a hasan (good) hadith, as we said.