one of the Companions, the Successors and their followers, as well as the imams and scholars of every school, throughout the ages down to our own time.” (1)

He also said, “This has unquestionably attained the level of mass transmission, such that none but ignorant fools can deny it—such as the Qadianis and those who follow their path—for it was transmitted by group after group until it became firmly established in the books of the Sunnah that have reached us through mass transmission, received by generation after generation.” (2)

He named the Companions who narrated it, counting more than twenty-five. More than thirty Successors narrated it from them, after which it was transmitted by an even greater number of the Followers of the Successors—and so it continued until the leading scholars included it in the books of the Sunnah. These include Musnad collections, such as the Musnads of al-Tayālisi, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Uthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Abū Yaʿlā, al-Bazzār and al-Daylamī; and the compilers of Sahih collections: al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Hibbān, al-Hākim, Abū ʿAwānah, al-Ismāʿīlī, al-Diyā al-Maqdisī and others. It was also transmitted in comprehensive hadith collections, topical compilations, Sunan works, tradition-based Quran commentaries, Muʿjam collections, hadith fascicles, collections of singular reports, works on miracles, biographical classes and apocalyptic battles.

Among those who compiled the hadiths concerning the descent of Jesus (peace be upon him) was Shaykh Muhammad Anwar Shāh al-Kashmīrī (3), in his book al-Tasrīh bimā Tawātara fī Nuzūl al-Masīh (The Explicit Declaration of the Mass-Transmitted Reports Concerning the Descent of the Messiah),