Ka'b b. ‘Ujra told that God's Messenger said to him, “I commend you to God to protect you from the ruler ship of the foolish.” He asked what that was, and God’s Messenger replied, “After my time governors will arise whose falsehood will be believed and who will be assisted in their oppression by those who enter their presence. They have nothing to do with me and I have nothing to do with them, and they will never come down to me at the Pond. But they who do not enter their presence, believe their falsehood and help them in their oppression, those belong to me and I belong to them, and those ones will come down to me at the Pond.”*
Tirmidhi and Nasa’i transmitted it.
* This is the tank or pool at which believers will drink on the day of resurrection.
Ghalib al-Qattan quoted a man who stated on the authority of his father that his grandfather reported God’s Messenger as saying, “The office of a chief is necessary, for people must have chiefs, but the chiefs will go to hell.”*
Abu Dawud transmitted it.
* Mirqat. iv, 133 says this means those who are unjust, or is a warning against the temptations to injustice arising from their office.
Ibn ‘Abbas reported the Prophet as saying, “He who lives in the desert will become rough, he who follows the chase will become negligent, and he who goes to a ruler will be led astray.”
Ahmad, Tirmidhi and Nasa’i transmitted it. Abu Dawud’s version has, “He who attaches himself to a ruler will be led astray, and the nearer a man comes to a ruler the farther he goes from God.”
He reported God’s Messenger as saying, “Woe to the governors, woe to the chiefs, woe to the superintendents! On the day of resurrection people will wish that their forelocks were tied to the Pleiades, that they were swinging between heaven and earth, and that they had never exercised any rule.”*
It is transmitted in Sharh as-sunna. Ahmad transmitted it, his version saying, “that their flowing hair were tied to the Pleiades, that they were dangling between heaven and earth, and that they had never been made governors over anything.”
* The idea of their swinging between heaven and earth is that they will wish they had been far removed from the world during their lifetime so that they would not have exercised rule.
