Mahdism in Sunni Islam
The Sunnis view the Mahdi as the successor of Mohammad, the Mahdi is expected to arrive to rule the world and he is to reestablish righteousness.
The Mahdi is not described in the Qurʾān, only in hadith, with scholars suggesting he arose when Arabian tribes were settling in Syria under Mo’awiya. “They anticipated ‘the Mahdi who will lead the rising people of the Yemen back to their country’ in order to restore the glory of their lost Himyarite kingdom. It was believed that he would eventually conquer Constantinople.”
The Kaysāniya extented two other notions that became thoroughly related with the belief in the Mahdi. The first was the notion of return of the dead, particularly of the Imams. The second was the indication of occultation. “When Moḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiya died in 700, the Kaysāniya maintained that he was in occultation in the Raẓwā mountains west of Medina, and would one day return as the Mahdi and the Qāʾem.”
The appearance of the Prophet was also proposed unto the Mahdi. “An enormously influential tradition attributed to ʿAbd-Allāh b. Masʿud has Moḥammad predict the coming of a Mahdi coined in his own image: ‘His name will be my name, and his father’s name my father’s name’”
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