through the routes of ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Najūd, from Zirr ibn Hubaysh, from him. It was also narrated by the compilers of the Sunan, as well as al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (10213–10230). It was authenticated by al-Tirmidhī, al-Ḥākim, and Ibn Ḥibbān (1878). Abu Dāwūd’s wording is: “Even if only one day remained of this world, Allah would prolong that day until He sent therein a man from me, or from the people of my household, whose name corresponds to mine and whose father’s name corresponds to my father’s name. He will fill the earth …” The hadith.

Among those who authenticated it was Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah. In Minhāj al-Sunnah (4/211), he said: “The hadiths cited as evidence for the emergence of the Mahdi are authentic hadiths, narrated by Abu Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, Aḥmad, and others, from the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd and others.” The same is found in al-Muntaqā min Minhāj al-Iʿtidāl by al-Dhahabī (p. 534).

I say: These, then, are five of the leading hadith imams who authenticated the hadiths concerning the emergence of the Mahdi. Along with them are many times their number among both the early and later scholars. I shall mention the names of those that come readily to mind:

1. Abu Dāwūd, in al-Sunan, by his silence regarding the hadiths of the Mahdi.
2. Al-ʿUqaylī.
3. Ibn al-ʿArabī, in ʿĀriḍat al-Aḥwadhī.
4. Al-Qurṭubī, as cited in al-Suyūṭī’s Akhbār al-Mahdī.
5. Al-Ṭībī, as cited in Shaykh al-Qārī’s Mirqāt al-Mafātīḥ.
6. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, in al-Manār al-Munīf—contrary to those who falsely attributed otherwise to him.
7. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, in Fatḥ al-Bārī.
8. Abu al-Ḥasan al-Āburī, in Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī, as cited in Fatḥ al-Bārī.
9. Shaykh ʿAlī al-Qārī, in al-Mirqāt.
10. Al-Suyūṭī, in al-ʿUrf al-Wardī.
11. The eminent scholar al-Mubārakfūrī, in Tuḥfat al-Aḥwadhī.

There are many others—very many indeed.