…of mine, and I heard him say—swearing an oath to it—“This community will not perish until there arise within it twelve caliphs, all of them acting upon guidance and the religion of truth. Two of them will be from the Prophet’s Household: one will live for forty years and the other for thirty.”(1)

Al-Bayhaqī then set about refuting Abū al-Jald’s words with arguments that do not, in fact, constitute a refutation—something quite astonishing coming from him. A number of scholars supported Abū al-Jald, and his view is perhaps the stronger one for the reasons we have given, especially as he used to consult some of the earlier scriptures.

Indeed, in the Torah now in the hands of the People of the Book there is a passage whose meaning is that Allah, Exalted is He, gave Abraham the glad tidings of Ishmael, promising to make him grow and multiply and to raise from his offspring twelve great men.

Our teacher, the erudite scholar Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, said: “These are the very ones foretold in the ḥadith of Jābir ibn Samurah. He concluded that they will be dispersed throughout the history of the Ummah and that the Hour will not come until they have all appeared. Many Jews who later embraced Islam made a grave mistake: they imagined that these twelve were the ones to whom the Rāfiḍī sect calls, and so they followed them.”

Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād said: Ḍumrah narrated to us, from Ibn Shawdhub, from Abū al-Minhāl, from Abū Ziyād, from Kaʿb, who said: “Allah granted Ishmael, from his own loins, twelve stewards; the best and most excellent of them are Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān.”

Nuʿaym also said: Ḍumrah narrated to us, from Ibn Shawdhub, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Saybānī, who said: “No one is counted among the caliphs unless he has possessed the two mosques: the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and the Aqṣā Mosque.”(2)

Mention of the prophecies concerning events that occurred during the Abbasid era up to our own time

Among them is what took place in the days of Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās—the caliph who succeeded his brother al-Saffāḥ, namely al-Manṣūr, the builder of the city of Baghdad—in the year 145 AH.

Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād said in his book: Abū al-Mughīrah narrated to us, from Arṭāʾah ibn al-Mundhir, from someone who narrated to him, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that a man came to him while Ḥudhayfah was present and said, “O Ibn ʿAbbās, explain to me the words Ḥā Mīm ʿAyn Sīn Qāf.” Ibn ʿAbbās lowered his head for a while and turned away from him. The man repeated the question, but he gave him no answer. Ḥudhayfah then said to him, “I will inform you, and I know why he repeated it: it was revealed concerning a man from his Household named ʿAbd al-Ilāh—or ʿAbd Allāh—who will settle on a river among the rivers of the East. He will build two cities upon it, with the river running between them, and every arrogant tyrant will gather in them.”(3)