The following considerations also encouraged me to do so:

First: Many people associated with religious scholarship, and even with calling others to Islam, doubt the belief in the descent of Jesus (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) and his killing of the Dajjāl at the end of time. This is to say nothing of educated young people and other members of the general public who have no grounding in Islam. I have even come to think that many graduates of al-Azhar University are among those who doubt this belief—if not among those who deny it. I have learned this through face-to-face discussions with some of them, reading fatwas issued by others on this subject, and examining the comments that still others have made on certain books.

Among the best-known of these scholars is Shaykh Muhammad ʿAbduh. At times, he says that the hadith concerning the descent of Jesus (peace be upon him) is not mass-transmitted! This reflects his knowledge of hadith; in my judgment, he is among the contemporary scholars least versed in it. At other times, he interprets Jesus’ descent and rule on earth as his spirit and the essence of his message coming to prevail among people—namely, the call to mercy, love, and peace that predominated in his teaching… Sayyid Rashīd Ridā reported this in his Quran commentary (3/217). Although he rejected this interpretation in the words that followed:

“Yet the apparent meanings of the hadiths reported on this matter rule it out,”

he then countered this qualification by adding:

“Those who adopt this interpretation may say that these hadiths have been transmitted in paraphrase, as most hadiths have been, and a narrator who conveys the meaning conveys what he has understood. He (meaning Muhammad ʿAbduh) was asked about