the Mahdī—the reports, to the point that they reached the level of mass transmission in meaning. This became so widely known among Sunni scholars that it came to be counted among their doctrinal beliefs.”

He then cited a number of hadiths and reports concerning the Mahdī’s emergence, along with the names of some of the Companions who narrated them. He then said: “Multiple narrations have been transmitted from the Companions already mentioned and from others not mentioned—may Allah be pleased with them—as well as from the Successors after them. Taken together, they yield certain knowledge. Belief in the Mahdī’s emergence is therefore obligatory, as established by the scholars and recorded in the creeds of Sunni orthodoxy” (1).

4 - Al-Shawkānī said: “Of the hadiths establishing the mass transmission of what has been reported concerning the awaited Mahdī, fifty were accessible to us. They include authentic, sound, and weak reports strengthened by corroboration. They are mass-transmitted beyond any doubt or uncertainty. Indeed, the description of mass transmission applies even to fewer reports than these under every carefully formulated definition found in works of legal theory. As for the reports from the Companions that explicitly mention the Mahdī, they too are numerous and are treated as traced back to the Prophet, since such matters admit no scope for personal reasoning” (2).