Re-Reflections on Imam Mahdi (ll)

Also published in Daily Trust

When I saw yesterday’s rejoinder by the very Sheikh who had presented the lecture that inspired Hajiya Bilkisu’s piece, I thought he, being presumably a scholar, would address the specific arguments I had raised in the first part of my rejoinder or address the excerpts I quoted from the Shiites’ major reference books on their actual belief about their Mahdi.

Unfortunately however, he instead ended up making some empty allegations against my person including what he called my ignorance to spell my own name correctly. Anyway, I believe the issue at hand is much more important than I am, let alone the way I spell or misspell my name, so I will only focus on the relevant issues. Yet, I may, in due course, address his unwarranted worry over my name spelling issue, subject to space availability of course.

Meanwhile, before I move on to the second part of Hajiya Bilkisu’s piece, it is important to note that, her reference to the Shiites’ assertions in the first part of her piece that Al-Mahdi was born in the year 255 after Hijra and that he is still alive though hidden, which means he is now 1,180 years old, are unsubstantiated. Her reference to Allah’s ability and prerogative to decree and execute what He wants in this context contradicts the standard methodology of intellectual reasoning and arguing. Claims like these have to be proved with unambiguous proofs from the Holy Qur’an or the authentic collections of the prophetic Hadiths.

Therefore, in the absence of any proof from the above mentioned sources, Hajiya ended up citing a purported and vague reference from the so-called Zabura, which is simply an unfounded book falsely attributed to the noble prophet and messenger of Allah; Dawood (AS) who lived thousands of years ago. It is circulated by the gullible and the other so-called Malams who can’t prove its authenticity or even explain how it emerged in the first place. As a matter of fact, nobody can prove its authenticity either.

By the way, ironically, in worldly matters e.g. politics, business etc., people, especially the educated, always insist on verifying the authenticity of any information they learn before believing it, disseminating it or acting accordingly, but when it comes to religious issues only a few bother to check the authenticity of what they read or listen to.

Anyway, in the second part of her piece and in her apparent but futile attempt to corroborate the Shiites’ narrative about the subject matter and their unfounded belief that Al-Mahdi was born and is still alive, Hajiya recounted how she referred to the well-known Qur’anic narrative of the prophet Musa and Al-Khidr, during a lesson session, where she highlighted some unconfirmed Sufi narratives about Al-khidr, some of which claim that he is still alive and that some people can even meet with him.

In any case, the reality is that, Al-khidr is not alive. The fact that the Qur’an did not refer to his death does not mean that he is alive, because it (i.e. the Qur’an) did not refer to the death of many other historical figures among the prophets and messengers of Allah and even many non-Muslims, either.

Besides, the Prophet (pbuh) was authentically reported to have said, just a month before his death and shortly after performing Isha prayer, that “At the end of the next one hundred years from this night there will remain nobody on earth, among the living today, who will be alive then” (Bukhari, hadith # 533) This therefore means that even if Al-Khidr had survived up to the era of the prophet Mohammad (pbuh), which certainly never happened, he must have died before the end of the subsequent one hundred years from the death of the prophet (pbuh).

Moreover, any exception from this prophetic generalization has to be supported by a clear Qur’anic verse, as in the case of the Satan (Qur’an, Suratul Al-araaf, verses # 14-15), or an authentic prophetic hadith, as in the case Al-Dajjal (Sahihu-Muslim, hadith # 2942)

In the same vein, as Hajiya continued to scout for any pretext in her effort to support the Shiites’ version of Al-Mahdi narrative, she hinted that a book she read, which was written by Sheikh Othman bin Fodio about Al-Mahdi presented the narrative of Al-Mahdi in the same Shiites’ perspective she was promoting, which was simply wrong, to say the least. Obviously, whatever Sheikh Othman wrote or said about Al-Mahdi was to the best of his knowledge what the Sunni Muslims believe about him.

Interestingly enough, for the avoidance of doubt, Sheikh Othman bin Fodio was a Sunni Muslim scholar and revivalist, so also were all the Muslim scholars under his Caliphate e.g. Sheikh Abdullahi Gwandu and Sultan Mohammad Bello. Their books attest to that beyond any doubt. Nigerian Shiites’ purported glorification of the Sheikh by their frequent references to his struggle for Islamic revival, or by naming their worship or study centres after him, is part of misleading tactics to mislead the general public into believing that he also believed in their (i.e. Shiites’) religious doctrine.

Anyway, as Muslim scholars have always maintained over the centuries, the Shiites’ narrative of Al-Mahdi and indeed the entire doctrine and religious rituals peculiar to them are unfounded hence heretical, because they can’t prove them with any clear and unambiguous Qur’anic verse or authentic prophetic hadith. It may sound shocking to the largely gullible Shi’a adherents that, even in their own flawed criteria of hadith narration, and in all their voluminous major books of reference, there is no single hadith with an unbroken chain of narration (i.e. Sanad-muttasil) of identified, recognized, credible and trustworthy narrators narrating from one another up to the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh). They have always been challenged to produce one, yet they have not and indeed they can’t.

God willing, next Friday in the third part of this rejoinder, I will elaborate more on this point with the confessions of some of the Shiites’ most recognized clerics and theorisers over the centuries, as I will expose the actual aims for fabricating the whole Shiites’ narrative about Al-Mahdi and those probably behind it.