Those who opine the appareance of the Mahdi is a superstition also presented an hadeeth related by Al Haakim and Ibn Maajah, the hadeeth narrated by Anas bn Maalik, in which the Prophet was reported to have said: “and no Mahdi except Isa the son of Maryam لا مهدي إلا عيسى بن مريم”
Some scholars like Ibn Hajar, Ibn Taemiyah, Imam Dhahbiy answered that this hadeeth is weak because it’s axis is within Muhammad Bn Khaalid AlJundiy.
Whereas, Ibn Kethir answered otherwise and said the hadeeth is not weak and there is no sustainable evidence to declare the hadeeth weak when its chain of transmission is deeply studied; so he explained the hadeeth in a manner that did not contradict the affore affirmed evidences about the appearance of the Mahdi.
Those who present this hadeeth as an evidence explained it thus:
*the Prophet said there is nothing like Mahdi, Isa who has been established in the Qur’an also will be the one to descend during the last hour.
Other explanations regarding this hadeeth say:
*if we accept the appearance of the Mahdi, this hadeeth says Mahdi will come after Isa and not otherwise as we have buttressed.
And the correct explanation as said by Ibn Kethir and others is that the hadeeth doesn’t nullify the appearance of the Mahdi, rather the meaning of “Mahdi” in the hadeeth may be translated linguistically to mean “a rightly guided person”, and definitely, Isa bn Maryam is a rightly guided person, which gives the context of the hadeeth to mean “there will be no perfect rightly guided person except Isa the son of Maryam” and the meaning of perfect here is “being infallible”. There is no hadeeth to say the Mahdi will be infallible but definitely Isa bn Maryam will be infallible(ma’soom).
Also an answer to those who said the hadeeth indicates Mahdi will come after Isa; either Mahdi will come before Isa or after Isa, the valid point is still that Mahdi will appear and he is a sign among the last hour signs; believing he will come after Isa also opposes authentic hadeeth in Bukhari and Muslim which say Mahdi will lead the solaat when Isa descend.
We should equally note; in Episode Ten of this series, I made mention of an hadeeth, the hadeeth of Thawbaan which the Prophet said: “three will fight one another for your treasure, each one of them the son of caliph, but none of them will gain it. Then the black banners will come from the East….”
In this hadeeth, it indicates there will be civil war among the Muslims then and the army of the Mahdi who will come from the East(Khurasaan) will be the one to end the war.
Aaisha radiya Allahu anha narrated an hadeeth from the Prophet, recorded by Bukhari and Muslim, the Prophet said he saw something from his dream, an army of Muslims will attack the Ka’bah, Allah will destroy the army, until that happens, there will be no Mahdi.
In this hadeeth of Aaisha, we have a good news and a bad news altogether; the great news is that no non-Muslim army will attack the Ka’bah, wal hamdulillah.
And the sad news is that Ka’bah will be attacked by its own people for political dynasties.
The hadeeth of Thawbaan also indicates this army of Mahdi will have black flags as banners. And this made many (terrorists) organizations tried to enact this hadeeth and claim the army of the Mahdi.
What is the colour of the ISIS flag? They appointed black flags as banners.
The men of Juhayman Utaybi in the 1979 haram seizure also adopted black flag as their banner so as to enact this same hadeeth.
Also the Abbasid dynasty adopted black flag as their banner and their leader was Abu Muslim Al Khurasaani, they also tried to enact this hadeeth. But one thing is certain, prophecies cannot be acted as Hollywood movies.
The hadeeth says Mahdi will be living in Madeenah, he will be living as a normal person until Allah changes him for good in a night; during the Civil War, he will flee for his life from Madeenah to Makkah, as Allah said “whoever enters Makkah is safe و من دخله كان آمنا”, upon arriving Makkah, he will be forced by people to take the leadership and be their leader, they will give him the oath of allegiance willingly while he himself will be saying No, no he does not want.
Certain points you need to note about the appearance of Mahdi:
1: He will flee from madeenah to Makkah.
The Muhammad Qahtani of the Juhaiman group was from Riyadh.
2: Anyone who himself claims a Machi is a liar. The prophecy says Mahdi will be forced by people to take the leadership and not in accordance with his own will.
The ISIS leader, the Abbasid dynasty leader, the Juhayman group leader and others were the ones who forced people to give oath of allegiance to them.
They shed bloods because they want to be the leader; but the hadeeth narrated by Abu Daawud tells us the Mahdi will be willingly appointed by the people in between Hajar Al-Aswad and Maqaam Ibraheem in the Ka’bah.
3: He will become a changed person in a night(one day), and maybe a threat to the then rulers and flee to Makkah; with the support of Allah, the army from Khurasaan with black flag banners will come to support him over the tyrant rulers.
4: The entire Muslim ummah will be dis-united until his time, he will unite all the ummah whole world and everyone will give the aoth of allegiance to him. Then, there will not be ikhwani-salafi arguments.
5: He shall rule for seven years
6: He is the last of the minor signs linked to the major signs
7: The coming of Isa will make the Mahdi’s role end; because stability would have been in the land before Dajjaal comes to terrorize it again
8: The Mahdi will lead Isa and other jamaa’ah in the central mosque in Damascus the solaat of Fajr.
9: There is no evidence to what will become of the Mahdi after the descend of Isa; will he die after the solaat? Will he keep living under the reign of Isa till he die? Will he witness the killing of Dajjaal? All these, there are no Islamic evidence to prove them and we say “Allah knows best”.
With this, we come to the end of The Mahdi. Wal hamdulillah.