and Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ, according to one report.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUlāthah ibn ʿAlqamah ibn Mālik (1), Abū al-Yasar al-ʿUqaylī, served—together with ʿĀfiyah ibn Yazīd—as the judge of the eastern quarter of Baghdad under al-Mahdī. People used to call him “the judge of the jinn,” for there was a well from which anyone who drew water would be afflicted. He proclaimed, “O company of jinn, we have ruled that the night is yours and the day is ours,” and thereafter whoever took from it by day suffered no harm.
Ibn Maʿīn said, “He was reliable,” while al-Bukhārī remarked, “There is some weakness in his retention.”
[Then the year 169 AH began.]
In Muḥarram of that year al-Mahdī ibn al-Manṣūr died at a place called Māsabadhān (2) after a fever; some said he was poisoned, while others claimed a horse bit him and he died.
This is his biographical notice: he was Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās (3), Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī, Commander of the Faithful. He received the title “al-Mahdī” in the hope that he might be the one promised in the hadiths, but he was not. Though they share the name, they differ in deed: that promised Mahdī will appear at the end of time, when the world has fallen into corruption, and will fill the earth with justice just as it had been filled with tyranny and oppression.
Some have said that during his days Jesus son of Mary will descend in Damascus; this will be discussed later in the traditions on tribulations and epic battles, along with the report of the Mahdī and the descent of Jesus son of Mary—if Allah wills, and He is the One in whom trust is placed.
A narration transmitted through ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān states that the Mahdī will be from the Banū al-ʿAbbās, and similar reports—though weak—are attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās and Kaʿb al-Aḥbār. Even if such reports were authentic, they would not necessitate specifying a particular individual. Another hadith, however, states that the Mahdī will be from the descendants of Fāṭimah (4); this contradicts the former view. Allah knows best.