Of all the matters Muslims dispute, belief in al-Mahdi a.s. is in fact among the least disputed. Sunni and Shia alike hold that a man from the descendants of the Messenger of Allah SAAW will come and fill the earth with justice after it has been filled with oppression. In practice, though, the subject is almost always treated as the concern of one school alone.

The symptom is easy to recognise. A speaker discusses al-Mahdi for a few minutes and then, abruptly, turns: whatever you hear, do not let the Shia affect you on the question of the Mahdi. From that point onward the subject is no longer al-Mahdi but the Shia.

That turn is often accompanied by claims that are simply inaccurate. It is said that the Shia believe al-Mahdi was born five hundred years ago — whereas what is believed is a birth in the year 255 AH, some twelve hundred years ago. It is said that he vanished into a cave — whereas no teaching of this school states anything of the kind; the cellar at Samarra is a place associated with him, not the manner of the occultation. It is said that his name is Muhammad al-Askari — whereas it is Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Askari a.s.

One thing that speaker said is true, and it genuinely divides: we hold him to be infallible, and we hold him to be the twelfth of twelve. That is a real difference and there is no need to hide it. This article does not set out to dissolve differences, but to show how wide the shared ground already is — and how much of that shared ground is held in the Sunni hadith collections themselves.

Believing in the unseen

The first objection is usually not about texts but about common sense: how can one believe in a man who cannot be seen?

The answer stands at the opening of the surah every Muslim recites most often.

الٓمٓ

ذَٰلِكَ ٱلۡكِتَٰبُ لَا رَيۡبَۛ فِيهِۛ هُدٗى لِّلۡمُتَّقِينَ

ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤۡمِنُونَ بِٱلۡغَيۡبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقۡنَٰهُمۡ يُنفِقُونَ

“Alif Lam Mim. This is the Book, there is no doubt in it, a guidance for the God-conscious — those who believe in the unseen ...”

The first quality Allah SWT names for the God-conscious is belief in the unseen. No Muslim has ever seen Allah with his eyes, yet he believes. No one sees the angels, the jinn, or Iblis, yet the existence of all three is believed. So the objection “I cannot see him” does not rest on Islamic ground to begin with.

The second objection concerns age: can a human being live twelve hundred years? It is worth remembering that every Muslim already accepts the existence of Iblis, whose age far exceeds that, and accepts too that he is still capable of whispering evil today. Longevity in itself is not something Islamic belief rejects.

More than that, al-Mahdi a.s. is not the only creature of Allah held to be alive and beyond sight. Muslims believe that Nabi Isa a.s. was neither killed nor crucified.

وَقَوۡلِهِمۡ إِنَّا قَتَلۡنَا ٱلۡمَسِيحَ عِيسَى ٱبۡنَ مَرۡيَمَ رَسُولَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ وَمَا صَلَبُوهُ وَلَٰكِن شُبِّهَ لَهُمۡۚ وَإِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱخۡتَلَفُواْ فِيهِ لَفِي شَكّٖ مِّنۡهُۚ مَا لَهُم بِهِۦ مِنۡ عِلۡمٍ إِلَّا ٱتِّبَاعَ ٱلظَّنِّۚ وَمَا قَتَلُوهُ يَقِينَۢا

بَل رَّفَعَهُ ٱللَّهُ إِلَيۡهِۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمٗا

“... yet they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them ... Rather, Allah raised him up to Himself.”

Even a man standing unseen in the middle of a crowd is nothing strange in the history of Islam. On the night of the Hijrah the Messenger of Allah SAAW walked out of his house past the Quraysh who had surrounded it to kill him, and they did not see him.

وَجَعَلۡنَا مِنۢ بَيۡنِ أَيۡدِيهِمۡ سَدّٗا وَمِنۡ خَلۡفِهِمۡ سَدّٗا فَأَغۡشَيۡنَٰهُمۡ فَهُمۡ لَا يُبۡصِرُونَ

“And We have set a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, and covered them over, so that they cannot see.”

The Dajjal is older than al-Mahdi

There is one comparison that is rarely made, and interesting for that very reason.

In Sahih Muslim, in the book on tribulations and the portents of the Hour, there is a long report known as the hadith of al-Jassasa. Fatimah bint Qais relates that the Messenger of Allah SAAW gathered the people after the prayer and told them that Tamim ad-Dari — a Christian who had newly entered Islam — had reported to him something that agreed with what he had been telling them about al-Masih ad-Dajjal.

Tamim and thirty men had sailed, been tossed by the waves for a month, and come ashore on an island. There they met a creature so thickly haired that its front could not be told from its back. It named itself al-Jassasa and sent them to a man in a monastery. That man was enormous, bound in iron, his hands tied to his neck and his legs shackled from knee to ankle. He asked about the date palms of Baysan — whether they still bore fruit; about Lake Tiberias — whether there was still water in it; about the spring of Zughar — whether the people still grew crops with it. Last he asked about the unlettered Prophet: what had he done. When they had answered, he said: I am al-Masih ad-Dajjal. He would soon be permitted to emerge and travel the earth, sparing no town save Makkah and Tayba, both forbidden to him.

Consider what follows from this. The report stands in the collection ranked second in authority among the Sunnis, and in it a creature is declared to be already in existence, alive, and held in chains somewhere since the time of the Messenger of Allah SAAW. Which means that within the Sunni framework itself, the Dajjal precedes al-Mahdi a.s., who on the Shia account was born some two and a half centuries after the Messenger of Allah SAAW passed away.

So the fair question is not “how can you believe in a man who has lived so long,” but why that objection is only ever pointed one way. Whoever accepts the hadith of al-Jassasa has already accepted the principle: a creature may have his life extended and be withheld from human sight until a time Allah appoints.

From the same body of reports comes the ruling that no one will kill the Dajjal but Isa ibn Maryam a.s. And here the two names meet: the return of Nabi Isa a.s. and the appearance of al-Mahdi a.s.

The descent of Nabi Isa a.s. and the imam who leads him

In Sahih al-Bukhari, in the book of the stories of the prophets, there is a chapter whose title says enough on its own: the descent of Isa ibn Maryam. In it Abu Hurayra relates that the Messenger of Allah SAAW said: by the One in whose hand my soul is, Isa ibn Maryam will descend among you as a just ruler, he will break the cross, and wealth will be so abundant that no one will accept it.

The report that follows in the same chapter is far more decisive, and far less often quoted: how will you be when the son of Mary descends among you, and your imam is from among you?

That sentence carries a question that cannot be avoided. If Nabi Isa a.s. descends and there is an imam who leads him, who is the man of such standing that a prophet of the highest rank stands behind him in prayer? The Sunni sources themselves, in their discussion of the signs of the end of time, supply the name: al-Mahdi.

The Book of al-Mahdi in Sunan Abu Dawud

If there is one thing worth knowing for anyone who supposes the subject of al-Mahdi to be the invention of a single school, it is that Sunan Abu Dawud contains a whole book entitled Kitab al-Mahdi. Not a chapter tucked in somewhere, but a section of its own.

Gathered in it, among others:

The report of Jabir ibn Samura that this religion will remain standing until there have been twelve caliphs. The people said the takbir and grew loud, and the Messenger of Allah SAAW then said something in a lowered voice; when asked, it turned out he had said that all of them would be from the Quraysh. That the hadith of the twelve is placed inside the Book of al-Mahdi, and not elsewhere, is itself worth pausing over. One may disagree with how we count those twelve, but the number is not our invention.

The report that Allah would prolong that day until He sent a man from the family of the Messenger of Allah SAAW — his name as my name and his father’s name as my father’s name — who will fill the earth with justice as it had been filled with injustice.

The report that if no more than a single day of the world remained, Allah would send a man from his family to fill it with justice. One day. That sentence holds a large principle: this earth is never empty of the hujjah of Allah, and it will not be folded up before that hujjah has done what it was sent to do.

The report of Umm Salama that al-Mahdi is of the offspring of the Messenger of Allah SAAW, from the descendants of Fatimah a.s. We are often told that we make too much of one family. But that line of descent is not our stipulation; it is named in a book we did not write, and it is named again every time a Muslim sends blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad.

And the report of the army swallowed up by the earth at al-Bayda as it marched on al-Mahdi in Makkah — jaysh al-khasf — together with the note that all of them are swallowed, yet on the Day of Resurrection each will be raised according to his intention.

Sunan Ibn Majah: the chapter on the appearance of al-Mahdi

In Sunan Ibn Majah, in the Book of Tribulations, there is a chapter titled specifically for the appearance of al-Mahdi. Several of its reports repay reading in order.

The first opens on a scene. When some young men of the Banu Hashim passed before the Messenger of Allah SAAW, his eyes brimmed and the colour of his face changed. Asked why, he said that his family is a household for whom Allah has chosen the hereafter over this world, and that after him that household would be put to distress, driven out and displaced — until a people came from the direction of the east with black banners, who would ask for their right and not be given it, and would fight and be granted victory, and would in the end hand the affair to a man of his household who would fill the earth with justice. He closed with an instruction: whoever among you lives to see that time, go to him and support him, even if you must crawl over the snow.

Note that this report about al-Mahdi opens with the tears of the Messenger of Allah SAAW for his family. It is as though he were reciting a lament for his own household before delivering the good news. And what he named came to pass: one after another his family were killed, beheaded, and taken captive.

The next report says that al-Mahdi will appear in this nation and rule for seven years, or nine; that in that time the nation will live in an ease it has never known; that wealth will be heaped up, so that if a man stands and says, O Mahdi, give me, he will answer: take as much as you wish.

Then the report most often missed: when you see him, pledge allegiance to him, even if you must crawl over the snow, for he is the khalifa of Allah, al-Mahdi. The title khalifa of Allah is no light one; it is used of Adam a.s. and of the prophets. And here it is not found in al-Kafi or Bihar al-Anwar, but in Sunan Ibn Majah.

Then: al-Mahdi is from us, the people of the house; Allah will set him right in a single night. One night. Some read it as a preparation Allah completes in an instant; but the sentence is also open to another reading — that what happens overnight is his appearing, out of a state we did not know.

Then: al-Mahdi is of the offspring of Fatimah. And another report: we, the sons of Abd al-Muttalib, are the chiefs of the people of Paradise — I, Hamza, Ali, Ja’far, al-Hasan, al-Husain, and al-Mahdi. The name of al-Mahdi appears in a single line with names no Muslim hesitates to honour.

And last, a short sentence: a people will come out from the direction of the east, and they will pave the way for al-Mahdi to take the affair in hand.

What remains different

Differences of course remain, and there is no need to blur them. The chief one is whether he has already been born. There is also a difference over his father’s name — some Sunni reports give Abdullah, while the school of the Ahlul Bayt gives al-Hasan al-Askari a.s. There is a difference over his line of descent: through Imam al-Hasan a.s. or through Imam al-Husain a.s. And there is a difference over his infallibility.

But look at what is left once all of that is subtracted. Both sides agree that he is of the descendants of Fatimah a.s.; that he fills the earth with justice after it has been filled with oppression; that Nabi Isa a.s. descends in his time; that the Dajjal is his adversary; that his coming is a certainty which the ending of the world cannot cancel. What is agreed is far more than what is disputed — and it is precisely what is agreed that is least often discussed together.

The books that go unopened

The neglect is not one-sided. Among the Shia themselves, al-Ghayba of an-Nu’mani and the Kitab al-Ghayba of Shaykh at-Tusi — two works devoted precisely to the occultation and to answering the objections raised against it — are seldom opened by those who each morning recite a supplication for the hastening of his appearance. We say his name daily, but we do not always give time to studying him.

And the places named in these reports are not unfamiliar names: Makkah, Madinah, Bayt al-Maqdis, Iraq, Sham, Yemen. The very places bearing the most suffering today. It is difficult to read these reports again without the sense that the subject concerns something under way, and not merely a chapter in a book.

In closing

The point of walking through the Sunni collections above is not to prove a school by another’s evidence, nor to win an argument. It is simpler than that: to show that this waiting belongs to no single group. It is recorded on both sides, often in nearly the same words.

When he does appear, he will not appear for one school. The more of him we study together, then, the less will be left to dispute on that day.

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(1) This article was developed from an episode of the programme Live in London on the Imam Hussain TV channel with Dr. Sayed Ammar Nakshawani, on Imam al-Mahdi a.s. in Sunni literature. The arrangement, wording and conclusions here are the author’s own; the talk is the source of the theme and of the works cited.
(2) Hadith references here are given by the name of the book and chapter rather than by number, since the material available to the author was a spoken transcript and the numbering differs between editions. The Arabic text of the hadiths is deliberately not quoted here for the same reason; a reader wanting the wording should go directly to Sahih Muslim (Book of Tribulations and Portents of the Hour, the hadith of al-Jassasa), Sahih al-Bukhari (Book of the Stories of the Prophets, chapter on the descent of Isa ibn Maryam), Sunan Abu Dawud (Kitab al-Mahdi) and Sunan Ibn Majah (Book of Tribulations, chapter on the appearance of al-Mahdi).
(3) The supplication recited to renew the pledge of allegiance to him is set out in Doa Al Ahd elsewhere in this archive.
(4) The prose and the detail of the reports in this article still want a reading from someone qualified in both.