Determining the Origin of the Assimilation of Jesus and Mahdi with the Dating of Narratives
Subject Areas :
Ensieh al-Sadat Eskaf
1
(PhD student of Quranic Sciences and Hadith, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.)
Nosrat Nil Saz
2
(Associate Professor, Department of Quranic Sciences and Hadith, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.)
Kazem Ghazi Zadeh
3
(Assistant Professor of Quranic Sciences and Hadith, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.)
Hosein Khandagh Abadi
4
(Research Assistant Professor of The EncyclopaediaIslamica Foundation.)
Keywords: The Expected Savior, Narratives of Jesus and Mahdi’s Assimilation, Dating of Hadith, Hasan al-Basri.,
Abstract :
In various religions, the concept of the Expected Savior has been ingrained as the culmination of the End times. According to Islamic sources and some non-Islamic references, the Prophet (pbuh) foretold the appearance of a Savior, although there are different perspectives on his identity. Some claim that the anticipated Savior foretold by the Prophet (pbuh) would not arise from within the Islamic community, but rather the return of Jesus Christ was prophesied. However, over the course of a continuous transformation, Muslims marginalized Jesus and replaced him with the familiar designation of Mahdi. One of the documents supporting this perspective is the narrative of al-Mahdi is Jesus son of Mary. The article seeks to investigate the claim of attributing this narrative to the Prophet (pbuh), and through various methods of historical dating, including exploration of the oldest sources and textual-authenticity analysis, it has been established that this belief was introduced by Hasan al-Basri in Basra at the end of the 1st century Hijri, and later disseminated through ascetics, often with a background in Christianity or familiarity with it. In the 2nd century, it was attributed to the Prophet (pbuh) by Mohammad ibn Khalid al-Jundi for further credibility, and it spread in lands such as Iraq, Egypt, Sham, Hejaz, and Palestine.