Ahmad Effendi Hayaati (d. 1229 AH) pioneer in criticizing Date- determining for the Advent in the Ottoman Empire

Examination and research about the apocalyptic ideas and the history of occurring the signs of the Resurrection, including the Advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ) and subsequently Jesus Christ Advent , have been common among Muslims since the beginning of the history of Islam. Meanwhile, some religious scholars with different intellectual tendencies have tried to determine the date of these events. In the present article, the method of critical research by Ahmad Effendi Hayaati (Sunni scholar of the Ottoman Empire), based on his short treatise entitled Tahaafotu Mostakhrejihe, on the determinants of date for the signs of the Resurrection, especially the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ) has been examined. The treatise was written in Arabic and then translated into Ottoman Turkish by the original author at the request of some government figures for public benefit. The content of the treatise has been read and reviewed based on the manuscript number "1701" in the Topkapi Museum of Istanbul. In his treatise, Hayaati mentions a person named "Osman Effendi" who had predicted the year 1213 AH as the year of the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ). In this treatise, Hayaati criticizes the documents and methods of the determinants of Date and believes that categories such as the date history for the signs of the resurrection and the advent of Imam Mahdi cannot be predicted by methods such as Jafr, Zij and Zaycheh. The Prophet of Islam has also been unaware of the time for occurrence of these events and mystical intuitions are not valid in this regard. If there were probably any hadiths about determining the time for the signs of resurrection they would be news with a single narrator that are not valid and would be inconsistent with explicit texts of Quran and prophet tradition and must be set aside. In fact, in this way, Hayaati achieves the theory of the impossibility of determining date for occurring the signs of the resurrection including the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ).