Is the Mahdi here? | Isha Khatira | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

inshallah today's uh brief khatera lecture is going to be about a topic that has generated some discussion especially in these particular days and it goes back to ancient times it's a concept of theology so we're going to discuss what is this aspect what are the controversy and inshallah what is perhaps the correct opinion and the topic is about the Mahdi many of us have heard this notion of the Mahdi and it is mentioned in a number of books of Hadith and it is one of the key differences between our theology majority group there's two main groups of Islam so this notion of the Mahdi it is one of the fundamental points of difference between us and between them so firstly what is the Mahdi secondly what is the evidence of his existence and characteristics and thirdly what is some of the historical controversies that have taken place the term Mahdi is a title it's not a name and it means the rightly guided from Huda mahadi that he is guided and so he will guide he will be guided and he will guide other people so the Mahdi is somebody who is correctly guided he has hidayah he himself is upon the straight path now the term Mahdi is not found in the Quran meaning as a person going to come nor is it found in the most authentic books of Hadith which is Muslim but we do find references to this concept and some of the other books such as such as such as the is we find a number of traditions about a person and some of them his name is mentioned a man shall come towards the end of times his name will be my name and the name of his father will be the name of my father meaning and in other Traditions his description is given a man shall come with an aquiline nose and a broad forehead and other Traditions the time frame will be mentioned towards the end of times a man shall come and yet other Traditions the conditions of the time are mentioned the prophet saws said there will be a time that is full of Injustice and evil and Allah will send a person who will bring about Justice and Harmony Justice and equilibrium so we learn from this that in the Hadith literature there is this notion of somebody coming towards the end of times his name is going to be Muhammad Abdullah and his title his description will be the Mahdi not that his name is Mahdi it's his description it's an adjective how you describe him and he shall come towards the end of times now I said there's no explicit reference in bukhari and Muslim to the Mahdi but there is implicit reference there is implied reference in bukhari and Muslim for example Muslim our Prophet sallallahu said that one is will come down your Imam shall be from amongst you the term Imam is used Scholars have understood this is a reference to the Mahdi even though it's not explicit in another Hadith also Muslim the prophetam said when is comes down he shall come down in the white minerit in Damascus they say this is the umayyad mosque which was built after the Hadith was mentioned uh they say this is the umayyad mosque he's gonna come down in the white minaret and will have been given the person will be leading or about to lead and will come down the person leading will say to ISA you come and ASA will say no this is for you not for me now there's no name given of the Mahdi but our Scholars say this is a reference to the Mahdi our Scholars say this is a reference to the Mahdi if this is the case then we learn the Mahdi is going to be a person who is alive when Risa and the Jal are both here which means the very end of times if you go back to the lectures I gave here at Epic the signs of day of judgment I mentioned Risa and dajjal they are of the major signs right before the trumpet is blown this is at the very end of times the fact that Risa comes down and the Mahdi is leading Salah means that the Mahdi will witness this end of times so the coming of the Mahdi is signaling the beginning of the very end the last final days on earth now this concept in our tradition by by our I mean it is very clear this is not a supernatural person with wings he's gonna fly in the heavens no he's a normal human being Flesh and Blood he doesn't have Supernatural Powers he doesn't have nobody has according to us other than Allah right he does not say only Allah is like this rather he is a righteous human being and a person whom the ummah agrees upon that he should lead them during the time of fitna there's going to be a time of Civil War a time of chaos and the ummah shall agree this is the person who shall lead us that is the characteristic of the Mahdi and he shall be fighting the the Jal until Isa comes he won't be successful against the judge but he shall fortify the Believers waiting for Isa to come behind him the Believers will be fighting the dajjal and when Risa comes down Arisa will take over and Isa will kill the Deja so the Mahdi according to our tradition is a normal human being a flesh and blood he has no Supernatural Powers he shall be born at the end of times and live a normal life and die and that will be his demise now the other group the non-sunni group the major group that is you know the second largest group of the ummah that group has a very different belief about the Mahdi and they say the Mahdi has already been born and the Mahdi for them is the 12th Imam they have 12 imams according to their theology from their standpoint they say the Mahdi has already been born and the Mahdi is currently alive amongst us but he is hidden to the masses he could be anywhere he could be in this audience he could be there he could be here he is alive and active helping the poor and Performing Miracles and according to them he has Supernatural Powers he knows and he can control the creation and they give him powers that are from our perspective not appropriate like this is something only Allah azzawajal has but from their perspective they say no all of the imams have it and this is now the 12th Imam who is currently alive but he's in hiding they say that the Imam is alive but in hiding and when the Imam returns he's not going to be born he's already born he's going to be he's going to become apparent and he will reveal himself he will reveal himself not that he's going to be born and live no according to us the Mahdi is going to be born normal birth live a normal life in fact in one Hadith there's a reference that the Mahdi might not even be Pious in his Youth and he will become Pious when he becomes older the phrase is in one night Allah will Rectify him which means he was not rectified which means he might have not been the best person then one night or something is going to happen and he will become a very Pious person then people will begin to respect him and then people shall eventually say we want you to be in charge and then the the the the times and the end of times will happen according to the other group the Mahdi is currently alive and hidden amongst us and the Mahdi when he comes back the main purpose for that group is not to fight against the Jal or to no it's something that is actually awkward to say and that is according to them the Mahdi will bring back the rights of the al-bait and will exact Revenge upon those that oppose the and if you understand this then fine if not then don't worry about it this is one of the awkward topics we don't want to flare sectarianism but we have to teach facts so we try to unify as much as possible but this is a fact that does divide and we try to explain without provoking hatred we're trying to be factual without incendiary uh topics but fact of the matter is some people from that group believe that the Mahdi is going to Massacre not the followers of the Jal but Muslims who didn't agree with their Theology and that's obviously problematic because that raises sectarianism we strongly disagree with this so this is this is non-sunism I didn't mention the term on purpose now has there been any controversy within our Sunni Islam yes definitely there has always been dissenting voices even within our tradition even for example some of the tabirun the students of the sahaba they believed that is going to be the Mahdi not that there's going to be a person separate from him they say when the process is talking about the Mahdi this is a prediction of Issa that he is the person who will be rightly guided there has been that sentiment also in our own tradition the founder of the Abbasid Empire what is his name who can tell me the founder of the abbasids the founder don't Google Now Yeshua quit googling it no that's the main fighter abujah is the founder of the abbasids he actually his name was Abdullah he named his son Muhammad Muhammad IBN Abdullah and he gave him the lakab al-mahdi so one of the Abbasid is whose name is Muhammad IBN Abdullah and his father set up the scenario hoping his son would be the Mahdi interesting right he hoped that his son will be the Mahdi and this is the first time out of many many many times that people tried to script a Hollywood script to try to bring the Catalyst that the Mahdi comes no you cannot script Allah's other you cannot script the actual plan that's going to happen Allah will bring it to happen you cannot act the act when the Mahdi comes he will be the Mahdi you cannot write an entire dialogue and pretend you are the mahadeep throughout history more than 40 people throughout all of history we know of at least 40 there are more I'm sure that have claimed to be the Mahdi more than 40 beginning with this is the first and he's within our tradition sunism right and there were many others that Hadith even to rage throughout history even recently any sudanis in the audience for our Sudanese friends where are okay you know the Mahdi movement of Sudan right the Mahdi movement they're still around to this day are they not yes there's still a group in the in Sudan 150 years ago somebody claimed to be the Mahdi in Sudan and he fought the British and for a while he was successful when the British completely you know decimated his followers but the group remains and he claimed he was the Mahdi and there is a movement to this day they have a leader they consider him to be the Mahdi in India as well I don't want to be too explicit but there is a group some of you know it that's they are a slightly different group than ours even though they call themselves Sunni but they are a slightly different group and they have Ahmad either in the tens of thousands I have met one or two of them myself they're in the tens of thousands and they have this and in Iran there came a fad 200 years ago multiple people claim to be the Mahdi and one of them founded the Baha'i movement the you know its founder was a Muslim who claimed to be the Mahdi and then he founded and broke away and another group called The babis if you know them it's not also also from within that that time frame he also said he's the Mahdi and then what happened happened in 1979 I have given multiple lectures about this right a person claimed to be the mahadi in Arabian Saudi Arabia and he hijacked Makkah itself some of you who are above the age of 45 50 remember this and I have given multiple lectures because I have interviewed dozens of people I was too young to remember the incident but by the time I went to study in in the University of Medina many of my teachers were undergraduates when this movement was active so I interviewed myself multiple people who were aware of this movement some of whom followed it for a while and then left the movement so I interviewed myself eyewitnesses people who were in The House of this person and discussing plans and whatnot I have lots of information maybe one day I'll give more lectures because some of it is very sensitive but uh in 1979 a person by the name of Muhammad Abdullah claim to be the Mahdi now in one Hadith it mentions that the Mahdi shall be given Baya in front of the Kaaba between the rukun and the makam that the Mahdi will take the Bayard between the rukun and the makam between the when it says rooken over here it means the hajr and the Muhammad means Ibrahim so between them Ibrahim and the door of the Kaaba basically the Mahdi will be given the oath of Allegiance this is it mentions that not by name because remember and Muslim don't mention the Mahdi by name but it mentions one of the signs at the end of times is that a righteous man shall flee to Makkah and the armies will be sent against him to kill him and Allah azzawajal will cause the Earth to open up and destroy all the armies and the man shall be protected now our Scholars say this is the Mahdi the Hadith does not say but who else can it be and this is the predominant position that one of the signs of the Mahdi is that the people will choose him as a leader the actual leaders will not like the guy so the actual leaders will want to kill him he's going to flee for his life to Makkah he doesn't have an army the armies of the Muslim kings they're going to be in Muslim it says three sons of a king are going to fight for power and the Kaaba is going to be centered so these are all predictions towards the end of the times if you're if you don't know four years ago when I moved here I gave a whole long series about the signs of their judgment you can listen right here in Epic you could listen to that and I went over all of these signs so in it mentions that the Earth shall open up and Allah will destroy the armies that are sent against the righteous man the righteous man who can he be other than the mahadi so in 1979 somebody compile all of these Hadith and wrote a Hollywood drama this person mentally deranged he said let me hold the Kaaba hostage and let me do all of these Hadith and Allah azzawajal will send his hidden Army and the Earth will swallow up the army of this government and I will be safe and so if you know what happened on the first of Muharram in 1400 hijri auspicious New Day first of Muharram 1400 he locked up all of the doors of the Kaaba he took his um 100 and no sorry 550 people with armed machine guns hidden and whatnot and they held the Kaaba hostage they held the Imam of the Haram hostage they took the microphone and they announced the Mahdi had come there's actual video recordings and audio recordings on YouTube in Arabic very poor quality but actual audio recordings you can listen to them speaking if you listen very carefully because there's poor recording and the man is quoting the Hadith the prophet sallam said that the Mahdi will come and he will be given between and here he is and all of you come and give him you do not take a Hadith and make a Hollywood drama out of it it happens it happens you do not expedite it but they thought that's this this is their job of course hundreds of people were killed innocent her judge were killed for the first time in a thousand years tawaf stopped around the Kaaba for two weeks the Kaaba people did not visit it because of their hostage helding and the Army had to attack and things happened back and forth inside the Kaaba inside the Haram machine guns fighting one another people died Bloodshed electrocution chemical warfare I've gone into detail in other lectures this happened in 1979 literally you know when I was a child I mean I I didn't I wasn't aware of it I'm not saying it's not in a it's not like Generations ago it happened in our own lifetimes and of course the supposed mahadi was killed in this battle and all of his followers were executed that were captured alive and clearly he was in the mahadi there was no earth swallowing up an army what not you don't play games with the Sharia you don't put yourself I am the mahadi you know it doesn't work that way in fact one of our Scholars said anybody who claims to be the Mahdi disqualifies himself from being the Mahdi I repeat anybody who claims he is the Mahdi disqualifies himself because the Mahdi shall not claim it until the people give it to him when all of these miracles happen so to be very clear there are many people now especially on the internet claiming to be the Mahdi any person who needs to send out tweets and YouTube videos many of which are fake and Ai and whatnot any person who needs to talk about bizarre dreams telling you he's the Maddie automatically disqualifies himself from being the Mahdi I repeat no person who claims to be the Mahdi is the Madi the Mahdi shall not claim to be the Mahdi the Mahdi will be a righteous person he will run away from Power run away from Fame the people will love him the people will respect him the governments will want to kill him he's going to run for his life to the Kaaba then when you see that Miracle happen then you know this is the Mahdi until that happens no we do not directly get involved one final footnote here is it something that is completely unanimously agreed upon within our Sunni Islam response is no the vast majority of ulama say yes there is a concept called the Mahdi but throughout history there have always been some udama you know minority but they have been there IBN khaldoon for example said all of the Hadith of the Mahdi they are weak and another uh scholar of the of the 70 is a great scholar the chief judge of the state of Qatar um he's coming from definitely the mainstream you know hardcore Sunni tradition he's not an outsider he was a very core like defender of the idea there is no Mahdi in Sunni Islam he said and he's coming from that the concept of Mahdi is imported from the non-sunni group into sunnism right interesting anecdote he said this during the time of this incident in Mecca and he was very public about this these people are all wrong because there is no concept and he said it in a public conference in that conference were great Scholars if you know his name if you know his name all of these people were in that conference was senior to them in age and he made a blunt statement Islam this is something that has come from the non-sunni group and infiltrated our Sunni books all of the Hadith according to him are weak and fabricated said I want to have a debate with you as a young man at the time of middle-aged man and in the room yusufawi and Sheikh um and others like can you imagine this you know and according to the people that were there I'm just listening to them according to the people that were there Sheikh Abdullah was not convinced and he remained firm on his position there is no such thing as the Mahdi now interestingly enough we eventually adopted this position as well also said I don't accept these are Hadith as being authentic and this is something that is not something that we should believe in that's their opinion I respect their opinion I'm telling you factually the vast majority of our Scholars IBN hajar ashokani in fact great Scholars of Hadith sahawi and others they said these Hadith are authentic so the default position is that there is this notion of Mahdi however in our tradition the Mahdi does not form a major base basis of our theology it's in the footnotes it's there as for the non-sunni group the belief in the Mahdi is of course Central it is the pillar of their Theology and for us it is something incidental so much so even if somebody denies it and says the Hadith are not authentic he's still within sunism we've had people that have said this that yeah this concept is not authentic for our Traditions he's still withinism in any case I wanted to conclude on the key Point here because there's a lot of confusion and people are saying this listen to me carefully what did I tell you if somebody claims he's the Mahdi he cannot be the Mahdi so understand this point here I actually believe there is somebody gonna come call the Mahdi right but anybody who claims this right now is a liar we will only know the mahadi when will we know when the signs come and what is the main sign that Allah will miraculously defend the Mahdi in the Haram itself and the Kaaba shall protect this person and army sent to kill him that Army will be vanquished without any Bloodshed from our sight because we are not allowed to shed blood in Makkah but Allah will cause an earthquake and that's upon those people when that happens that is the sign of the Mahdi until then final point it was a final point one of our Scholars mentioned why did sheikhardawi not like the concept of the Mahdi by the way and I respect him immensely said too many people have stopped political activism thinking that the Mahdi will come and save them and he said this is not Islam even if there is the Mahdi or not you don't just sit back and say we're going to do nothing you must try your best to bring about a better world you must try to bring about better society and when the Mahdi comes good but until the Mahdi comes we all have work to do and we cannot use the concept of the Mahdi to become immobilized to become lazy if the Mahdi comes when the Mahdi comes good for us actually we don't want to be there when he does come we hope and pray we don't see that day right but regardless of that belief we still have an obligation to form a better society and to bring about as much peace and Justice as we can and with that inshallah there was some benefit in these comments I will continue next week foreign foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: EPIC MASJID

Views: 568,877

Keywords: East Plano Islamic Center, EPIC Masjid, East Plano Masjid, EPIC, Yasir Qadhi, Imam, Nadim Bashir, Ustadh, Baajour, Hafiz, Sajjad Gul, Allah, Quran, Islam, mosque, masjid

Id: NW9-kS07fAM

Length: 25min 59sec (1559 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023