Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 478
B AR Ā H Ī N-E-A H M ADIY YA — PART F IV E 478 father will be that of my father’]. Please explain what is meant by each of them. My Answer— My claim is not that I am the Mahdi who conforms to من ولد فاطمۃ [the progeny of F at imah], من عترتی [from my progeny], etc. Rather, my claim is that of being the Promised Messiah, and regarding the Promised Messiah, there is no statement of any mu h addith [scholar of hadith] that he would be from among the progeny of F at imah etc. Nevertheless, at the same time—as every mu h addith says—I also say that all the a ha d i th regarding the Promised Mahdi are moot and sus- pect and not one of them is authentic. The degree to which fabrication has taken place in these a ha d i th has not taken place in any other hadith. During the time of the Abbasid Khulaf a ’ etc. the Khulaf a ’ were very fond of pronouncing themselves the Promised Mahdi. So for this reason, some a ha d i th describe the Mahdi as being from the progeny of ‘Abb a s and some from the progeny of F at imah. There are some a ha d i th which also say that رجل من اُمّتی ‘He will be a man from my Ummah. ’ But essentially all of these a ha d i th are not worthy of any trust. This is not just my word; all eminent scholars of the Ahl-e-Sunnah have been say- ing the very same. As opposed to these a ha d i th, this hadith recorded by Ibn-e-Majah is very authentic: مھدی ال ّ عیسٰی ل meaning, there is no other Mahdi; ‘ I s a is the very same Mahdi who is to come. His Statement— The prophecies of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, that even the divines have tried to interpret [rather than taking them literally], are mostly those that have been disclosed in the form of dreams. … My Answer : I could not understand this question; hence, I am unable to answer it.