This indicates that after the Mahdi dies, evil and great tribulations will emerge.
3—Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “The Mahdi is one of us, the Prophet’s household. Allah will set him right in a single night.” (1).
Ibn Kathīr said: “That is, Allah will accept his repentance, grant him success, inspire him, and guide him, though he had not previously been so.” (2).
4—Abū Saīd al-Khudrī, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “The Mahdi is descended from me. He will have a broad forehead with a receding hairline and an aquiline nose. He will fill the earth with equity and justice just as it had been filled with tyranny and oppression, and he will rule for seven years.” (3).
= narrated it in a substantially abridged form, and the narrators of both are trustworthy.” *Majma al-Zawā’id*, 7:313–314.
See Shaykh Abd al-Muhsin al-Abbād, *Aqīdat Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Athar fī al-Mahdī al-Muntazar* (*The Creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Athar Concerning the Awaited Mahdi*), p. 177.
(1) *Musnad Ahmad*, 2:58, hadith no. 645, ed. Ahmad Shākir, who said: “Its chain of transmission is authentic”; and *Sunan Ibn Mājah*, 2:1367.
Al-Albānī also graded the hadith authentic in *Sahīh al-Jāmi al-Saghīr*, 6:22, hadith no. 6611.
(2) *al-Nihāya fī al-Fitan wa-al-Malāhim*, 1:29, ed. Dr Tāhā Zaynī.
(3) *Sunan Abī Dāwūd*, Book of the Mahdi, 11:375, hadith no. 4265; and al-Hākim, *al-Mustadrak*, 4:557. He said: “This is an authentic hadith that meets Muslim’s criteria, though neither al-Bukhārī nor Muslim recorded it.”
Al-Dhahabī said: “Imrān—one of the hadith’s narrators—is weak, and Muslim did not narrate from him.”
Al-Mundhirī said regarding Abū Dāwūd’s chain: “Its chain includes Imrān al-Qattān, namely Abū al-Awwām Imrān ibn Dāwar al-Qattān al-Basrī. Al-Bukhārī used his reports as supporting evidence; Affān ibn Muslim deemed him trustworthy, and he was highly praised by =