Criticism and Analysis of the Chains of Narrators and Texts of the Traditions of the Book “When Your Light Illuminates, you will be Abandoned, O Muntazar”. Response to the “Most Astonishing Lie in History”

Mahdaviyyat (the belief in the Mahdi (the guided one)) is one of the fundamental beliefs and necessities of Shia Islam and even Islam as a whole. Opposing currents within Islam, such as Wahhabism, attempt to eradicate the foundation of belief in Imamate and consequently destroy the essential structure of Muhammadan Islam. They strive to create doubts by questioning the lifespan of Imam Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance), casting suspicion on his birth, and sowing seeds of uncertainty regarding the existence of Imam Al-Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance) due to discrepancies in narrations about his names and titles. Their goal is to dismantle the main pillar of the life of Islam and Shia, which is the belief in the living and present Imam and introduce a selective form of Islam to the people. This is even though the Sunni narrations themselves are filled with explicit references to the existence of Imam Al-Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance) and emphasize his characteristics and attributes. In recent years, a book titled “Mataa Yashreqo Nouroka, Toorako Ayyohal Muntazar” (Your Light Illuminates, you will be Abandoned, O Muntazar) has been published in Saudi Arabia. Its author, Usman Ibn Muhammad Al- Khamis, has sought to re-examine the concept of Mahdaviyyat impartially based on Shia narrations. However, the book is replete with misleading, unreal, and distorted content, aligning with Wahhabi beliefs. This article aims to first provide a detailed typology of the narrations in that book and then critically examine some of its textual and documentary aspects. The research method employed in this study is text-centric, utilizing the principles of hadith jurisprudence, and in some narrations, in addition to textual analysis, the chain of transmission (sanad) is also scrutinized. The research findings indicate that the author, contrary to research principles, deliberately and extensively engages in verbal and conceptual distortions attempting to deny the belief in Mahdaviyyat. The main hadith jurisprudential evidence in refuting the author’s claim includes identifying verbal distortions such as additions to the narration, unjustified omissions, and alterations, and highlighting conceptual distortions such as distorting the content of the narration (interpretations based on personal and biased opinions), disassociating the hadith from its context, and citing narrations from unreliable and non-authentic sources.