False Mahdi Jaunpuri: Father's Name Not Abdullah

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Blessings and salutations of peace be upon you my Master, Apostle of Allah

Because there have been so many false Mahdi claimants in the history of this Ummah who caused nothing but mischief and tribulation some Muslims have been tempted to deny the concept of the Mahdi altogether. They usually argue that the narrations concerning the Mahdi that occur in the Sunni corpus of Hadith are the fabrications of Shi’ite narrators, and that no Hadith concerning the Mahdi is free of criticism with regard to its authenticity. But rather than reducing the likelihood of fitnah in this Ummah by insisting on such a denial these individuals have only served to introduce yet another fitnah. The prophecy about the Mahdi is not only established from the Hadith it is accepted by the great Imams, scholars, saints and elders of Ahl us-Sunnati wal-Jama’ah. The motives for denying the Mahdi are not pure and often stem from a materialist, modernist or reformist mindset.

So while countless individuals have risen in this history of the Muslim Ummah falsely claiming to be the Promised Mahdi, yet none has appeared thus far who fulfills all of the signs authentically narrated about the Mahdi from the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him. False Mahdi claimants may fulfill only a few of those signs, but it is sufficient grounds to reject them that they do not fulfill the entirety of the authentically narrated signs. Sayyid Muhammad Jaunpuri is one of the more significant Mahdi claimants as half a millennium has passed since he appeared and yet today there is still a sect in existence that attribute themselves to him. The so-called Mahdawi sect is concentrated in Hyderabad, India but these days they are attempting to proselytize and spread their misguidance to other areas. Therefore, it is prudent to address the tribulation of the Mahdawi sect and refute their misguidance through which they departed from mainstream Islam, namely, Sunni Islam.

Concerning the Mahdi, the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said:

اسْمُهُ اسْمِي وَاسْمُ أَبِيهِ اسْمَ أَبِي

His name is my name and his father’s name is my father’s name (Sunan Abi Dawud: Kitab al-Mahdi)

The name of the Holy Prophet’s father was Abdullah, but according to Mahdawi literature the father of Muhammad Jaunpuri was Sayyid Khan not Abdullah: “After this, the mullahs of the city of Nahruala (Patan) came to the Imam and said: ‘You call yourself Mahdi?’ Imam Mahdi replied: ‘It is not that this slave (of Allah) calls himself Mahdi. Allah commands me (to say so).’ The mullahs said: ‘The name of the Mahdi should be Muhammad bin Abdullah. But your father's name is Syed Khan.’ Imam Mahdi replied: ‘Is Allah incapable of making the son of Syed Khan the Mahdi?’ It is further reported that the mullahs again asked: ‘Mahdi should be Muhammad bin Abdullah. But the name of your father is Syed Khan.’ Imam Mahdi replied: ‘Ask Allah why He made the son of Syed Khan the Mahdi?’ It is reported that the mullahs recited the hadith of Prophet Muhammad which said: ‘His name would be like my name and his father's name would be like the name of my father.’ They further said: ‘The name of your father is Syed Khan.’ Imam Mahdi said: ‘The father of the Prophet was a kafir (infidel). How could he be Abdullah? (But in reality) the Prophet is Muhammad Abdullah and Mahdi too is Muhammad Abdullah. The calligrapher had written ibn between Muhammad and Abdullah, in the name by mistake.’” (Insaf Namah, p.23)

Here we see the obstinate attitude of Jaunpuri that in order to justify not fulfilling the Hadith concerning the Mahdi’s name he went to the extent of denying the well-established fact that the name of the Prophet’s father was Abdullah. And there are many other authentically narrated characteristics and signs of the Promised Mahdi that Muhammad Jaunpuri simply did not fulfill.