Page 76 - The Prophet Jesus (as) will Return

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THE PROPHET JESUS (AS) WILL RETURN
some detail in the hadith collections, among them al-Shaybani's
Taysir al-Usul ila Jami' al-Usul; Imam Maliki's Al-Muwatta'; the
Sahihs of Ibn Khuzayma and Ibn Hibban; and the Musnads of
Ibn Hanbal and al-Tayalisi, regarded as the greatest sources of
the most reliable hadith. Furthermore, many Islamic scholars
have carried out research and studies on these facts and have
written books and treatises on them. These are also invaluable
sources.
Heading the list of these great Islamic scholars is Abu Hani-
fa, the founder of the Hanafi legal school. In the final chapter of
his book Al-Fiqh al-Akbar, Abu Hanifa states:

The emergence of the antichrist and of Gog and Magog is a reality;
the rising of the Sun in the west is a reality; the descent of the Prophet
Jesus (as) from the heavens is a reality; and all of the other signs of the
Day of Resurrection, as contained in the authentic traditions, are
established realities. 22
The hadith relating the Prophet Jesus' (as) second coming
are tawatur, a specialized term defined as "a tradition that has
been handed down by a number of different channels of trans-
mitters or authorities, hence supposedly ruling out the possibili-
ty of its having been forged." Generally reliable hadith are those
which are reported by so many hadith experts that there is no
room left for error. The Islamic scholar Sayyid al-Jurjani
expounded on this concept as follows:
Generally reliable reports are those that attain such a level [of agree-
ment] among the majority of narrators that, according to custom, it is
[considered] impossible for so many reporters to agree on a falsehood.
In that event, if the report's words and meaning are consistent, then

this is known as the "reliability of the word." If there is agreement
among all of them in both sense and meaning, but a conflict in words,