Sahih Muslim 146
صحيح مسلم#146Sahihوَحَدَّثَنِي مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ رَافِعٍ، وَالْفَضْلُ بْنُ سَهْلٍ الأَعْرَجُ، قَالاَ حَدَّثَنَا شَبَابَةُ بْنُ سَوَّارٍ، حَدَّثَنَا عَاصِمٌ، - وَهُوَ ابْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ الْعُمَرِيُّ - عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عُمَرَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ " إِنَّ الإِسْلاَمَ بَدَأَ غَرِيبًا وَسَيَعُودُ غَرِيبًا كَمَا بَدَأَ وَهُوَ يَأْرِزُ بَيْنَ الْمَسْجِدَيْنِ كَمَا تَأْرِزُ الْحَيَّةُ فِي جُحْرِهَا " .
It is narrated on the authority of Ibn 'Umar ('Abdullah b. 'Umar) that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) observed:Verily Islam started as something strange and it would again revert (to its old position) of being strange just as it started, and it would recede between the two mosques just as the serpent crawls back into its hole
Scholarly Authentication
The label above is the grade most of these scholars gave, each scholar counted once — one dissenting opinion no longer speaks for all of them. If any scholar calls a narration fabricated, that verdict is shown instead, whatever the others say. When they judged only its chain of narrators (“Isnaad”), the label says “Sound chain”. Each scholar's own wording:
Every narration in Sahih Muslim is accepted as Sahih (authentic) by the established status of the book.
Sahih Muslim 146 is the standard (Abd al-Baqi) number; this narration is #373 in the MuslimGPT index.
In-book reference: 1:280