Caliphs who were the descendants of the Prophet’s Family, and had many of the characteristics of the Great Mahdi. The reason, then, for the apparent variance between the different narrations (concerning Mahdis) is that the qualities of the Great Mahdi (AS) were confused with those of the Revivalists (mujeddids) who precede him. (The Letters, 126)

Out of His perfect mercy, every time the Muslim community has been corrupted, Almighty God has sent a Reformer (Muslih), or a Regenerator (Mujaddid), or a Vicegerent of High Standing, or a Supreme Spiritual Pole (Qutb ul-A’zam), or a Perfect Guide, or blessed persons resembling a Mahdi, as a mark of His protecting the Sharia of Islam until eternity; they have removed the corruption, reformed the nation, and preserved the religion of Muhammed (PBUH).

Since His custom has proceeded in this way, certainly, at the time of the greatest corruption at the end of time, He will send a luminous person as both the greatest Interpreter of the Law, and the greatest Renewer, and Ruler, and the Mahdi, and as guide, and spiritual pole, and that person will be from the Family of the Prophet.

Almighty God, Who fills and empties the world between the heavens and earth with clouds, and in an instant stills the storms of the sea, and in an hour in