There is no family in the world so mutually supportive, nor a tribe in such agreement, nor so enlightened a community or society as the family, tribe, community and society of the Prophet’s Family.

Yes, the Prophet’s Family has raised hundreds of sacred heroes, and produced thousands of spiritual leaders of the Umma, and has been nurtured with the leaven of the reality of the Qur’an and the light of belief and honour of Islam, and has thus been perfected. It is therefore totally reasonable that through reviving the Shari‘a of Muhammad (PBUH) and his Sunna and the reality of the Qur’an at the end of time, and proclaiming them and putting them into practice, they should display to the world the perfect justice and veracity of the Great Mahdi, their Commander-in-Chief. This is also both necessary and essential and demanded by the principles of human society.

TWENTIETH MATTER

The sun rising in the west33 and the emergence from the earth of the Beast (Dabbat al-Ard).34

The sun rising in the west will be a self-evident sign of the end of the world, and because it is self-evident, it will be a heavenly event which closes the door of repentance, which is tied to the will and reason. Its meaning is therefore clear, and is in no need of interpretation. One may just say the following:

God knows best, its apparent cause will be this: with the disappearance from the head of the earth of the Qur’an, which is like its intelligence, the earth will go mad. With Divine permission, on another planet colliding with it, its rotation will be reversed. Through Divine will, its journeying from west to east will be reversed to from east to west, and the sun will start to rise in the west. Yes, the Qur’an is ‘the firm cord of God’35 which binds the earth to the sun, and the ground to the Divine Throne. If its gravity is broken, the string holding the earth would be undone, it would