while interpreting them in ways that ultimately amount to disbelief in the realities they describe? Take, for example, those who deny the mass-transmitted texts in the Quran and Sunnah affirming that the believers will see their Lord in the Hereafter, interpreting them to mean that they will see their Lord’s blessings! Or the Qādiyāniyyah, who believe—so they claim—in the words of Allah Most High:

“but the Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets” [al-Ahzāb: 40],

then maintain that prophethood continues and that many prophets will come after him, peace and blessings be upon him, including (Mīrzā Ghulām Ahmad al-Qādiyānī)! If you ask them about this verse, they will tell you that they believe in it—of course!—but that its meaning is not what the Muslims have understood from this verse; they will tell you that they believe in it—of course—but that its meaning is not what the Muslims previously understood! Rather, the meaning is: “but the seal of the prophets”—that is, their adornment, just as a ring adorns a finger! Will their belief in it avail them anything before Allah after they have interpreted it contrary to its true meaning?!

Likewise, I say: these scholars’ belief in the mass-transmitted hadiths concerning the descent of Jesus, peace be upon him, and his killing of the Dajjāl avails them nothing when they interpret them symbolically in this way. For this contradicts what every scholar free from personal bias would conclude with certainty if he examined the texts concerning them both.

It seems that, for this reason, some of them resort to another way of evading these hadiths, other than interpreting them symbolically: casting doubt on whether they are established with certainty by claiming that they are non-mass-transmitted reports! Among them is Shaykh (Mahmūd Shaltūt). Long ago, I read a response of his concerning Jesus, peace be upon him, being alive in heaven and descending at the end of time—published then in the magazine “al-Risālah”—in which I found astounding ignorance of the true nature of the hadiths concerning his descent, peace be upon him. This included his claim that all their chains of transmission pass through Wahb