It is reported that Al-Shaʿbī – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
Stay away from the sinful amongst the scholars and the ignorant amongst the worshippers, for these two are the calamity of everyone who would fall into fitnah.
Al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab Al-Īmān ḥadīth 1753.
It is reported that Al-Fuḍayl b. ʿAyyād – Allāh have mercy on him – said:
There is no one who loves authority (leadership) except that he envies, transgresses, chases the faults of others and dislikes anyone being mentioned in a good light.
Ibn ʿAbd Al-Barr, Jāmiʿ Bayān Al-ʿIlm article. 971.
It is reported that Abū Al-Dardāʾ – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
When you adorn your copies of the Qurān and embellish your mosques, destruction will be upon you.
Ibn Al-Mubārak, Al-Zuhd wa Al-Raqāʾiq, article 746. Shaykh Al-Albānī stated that the chain of transmission of this narration consists of reliable reporters, except he did not know if the reporter Bakr b. Suwādah had heard directly from Abū Al-Dardāʾ. The narration corroborates a similar ḥadīth reported from the Prophet ﷺ himself. See Al-Ṣaḥīḥah ḥadīth 1351.
ʿAbdullāh b. Masʿūd – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
The people will not cease to be well as long as they take knowledge from their seniors. When they take it from their juniors and their bad people, they will be destroyed.
Ibn ʿAbd Al-Barr, Jāmiʿ Bayān Al-ʿIlm article 1057.
Al-Firyābī reports:
When Sufyān [Al-Thawrī] would see these rabble writing knowledge his face would change (in anger). So I asked him, ‘O Abū ʿAbdillāh, we notice that when you see these people writing knowledge, it is hard upon you.’ He replied, ‘Knowledge used to be with the Arabs and with the leaders of the people, but when it left them and went to these types – meaning the rabble of society – the religion was changed.’
Op. cit. article 1072.
It is reported that ʿAbdullāh b. Al-ʿAmr b. Al-ʿĀṣ – Allāh be pleased with him – said:
Nifāq (hypocrisy) used to be something unusual amongst all the Īmān. Soon, Īmān will be something strange amongst all the nifāq.
Ibn Baṭṭah, Al-Ibānah 1:173 article 6.