The Essence of Islam – Volume V — Page 166
166. Essence of Islam-V. The following Hadith related by Imam Muḥammad. Baqir is recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ Dār-Quțnī: إِنَّ لِمَهْدِينَا ايَتَيْنِ لَمْ تَكُونَا مُنْذُ خَلْقِ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ يَنْكَسِفُ الْقَمَرُ لِاَوَّلِ لَيْلَةٍ مِنْ رَمَضَانَ وَتَنْكَسِفُ الشَّمْسُ فِي النِّصُفِ مِنْهُ. Translation: There are two signs for our Mahdi, and ever since God created the heavens and earth, these two signs have never appeared at the time of any other Appointed One or Messenger of God. One of them is that, in the time of the Promised Mahdi, during the month of Ramadan, the lunar eclipse will take place on the first night, i. e. , on the thirteenth; while the solar eclipse will take place on the middle of its days, i. e. , on the twenty-eighth day of the month of. Ramadan. Such a phenomenon has never occurred at the time of any Messenger or Prophet since the beginning of the world. It was destined to occur only at the time of the Promised Mahdi. . All English and Urdu newspapers and all astronomers testify that in my time lunar and solar eclipses of this particular description did take place about twelve years ago, during the month of Ramadan. [Haqiqat-ul-Waḥī, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, vol. 22, p. 202]. A strange revelation was vouchsafed to me in Urdu in 1868 or 1869, and it would be quite appropriate to mention it here. It happened this way: When Maulavī. Abū Sa'id Muḥammad Hussain Batālvī―who had at one time been my fellow student-came back to. Batāla after finishing his theological studies, the people of Batāla were offended by his ideas. One of them