Imam al-Qurṭubī cited in *al-Tadhkirah* (p. 701) the ḥadīth of Anas ibn Mālik which Ibn Mājah transmitted (no. 4039), containing the words: "And there is no Mahdī except Jesus son of Mary." Then he declared it weak, saying: The ḥadīths from the Prophet ﷺ explicitly stating the emergence of the Mahdī from his family, from the descendants of Fāṭimah, are established and more sound than this ḥadīth, so the ruling is in their favor rather than its. We say: He was correct except in his statement "from the descendants of Fāṭimah," for that is weak, as will come under no. 4284.

Al-Qurṭubī also transmitted in *al-Tadhkirah* (p. 701) from Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Ibrāhīm al-Sijistānī al-Āburrī his saying: The reports have reached the level of tawātur and spread widely through the multitude of their transmitters from al-Muṣṭafā — meaning the Mahdī — that he is from his household, that he will rule for seven years, that he will fill the earth with justice, that he will come forth with Jesus, peace be upon him, and assist him in killing the Dajjāl at the gate of Ludd in the land of Palestine, and that he will lead this ummah in prayer while Jesus, may God's blessings be upon him, prays behind him. This Abū al-Ḥasan al-Āburrī was described by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī in *al-Siyar* (16/299) with his saying: The imam, the ḥāfiẓ, the muḥaddith of Sijistān after Ibn Ḥibbān.

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah said in *Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah* (8/254): The ḥadīths adduced as evidence for the emergence of the Mahdī are sound ḥadīths, transmitted by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, Aḥmad, and others, from the ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd and others.

Likewise his student Imam Ibn al-Qayyim said in *al-Manār al-Munīf* after citing several ḥadīths on the Mahdī, declaring some of them good and others excellent (p. 148): These ḥadīths are of four categories: sound, good, rare, and fabricated.

Likewise the eminent muḥaddith Abū al-Ṭayyib Muḥammad Shams al-Ḥaqq al-ʿAẓīmābādī said in *ʿAwn al-Maʿbūd* (11/243) after mentioning that the ḥadīths on the Mahdī are transmitted by a group of imams from a group of Companions: The chains of these transmitters range between sound, good, and weak. The historian Imam ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khaldūn al-Maghribī went to extremes in his *History* in declaring all the ḥadīths on the Mahdī weak, and he was not correct; rather, he erred.

We say: Ibn Khaldūn only criticized them on account of ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Najūd, and the most balanced statement concerning him is what al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī said in *Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl* (2/357): that he is reliable in Qurʾānic recitation, while in ḥadīth he is below the level of full reliability — a truthful narrator who makes mistakes, and his ḥadīth is good. Al-ʿAẓīmābādī said in *ʿAwn al-Maʿbūd*: