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Fatwa CenterFalse narrations about the appearance of al- Mahdi
Question
I'm just wondering "is it true what Imam Ja'far Sadiq wrote in the book Ikmal Ad-Din on page 361, where he said that one of the evidence of the coming of Imam Mahdi is that the moon and sun eclipse happen in one holy month"? Because by this November, NASA had confirmed that the moon eclipse will happen on 9 Nov. 2003 and the sun eclipse will happen on 23 Nov. 2003 - both are in Ramadan.
Answer
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds; and may His blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions. In his 'al-Irshaad', al-Mufeed - one of the Shiite scholars - reported Imam al-Baaqir as having said: There will happen two signs ahead of the appearance of al-Mahdi (peace be upon him) [meaning Muhammad bin al-Hassan al-Askari ] whom they claim to appear at the end of this life (worldly life). These two signs are a solar eclipse in the middle of the month of Ramadan and a lunar eclipse in the end of it. He was then asked: 'Will there be both solar and lunar eclipse in the middle and the end of Ramadan?' He said: 'I know best what I have said; they are two signs that have never taken place since Adam (peace be upon him) descended to earth. In another narration, The lunar eclipse will take place five days before the end of Ramadan and the solar eclipse will take place in the middle of it . Still there are other narrations that we left for brevity. These narrations which were reported from Imam al-Baaqir are among many others which were falsely attributed to him. Being merely mentioned by some of those who claim following him, such narrations are not to be taken for granted. We hereby draw the attention of our dear questioner that the solar and lunar eclipse declared by NASA do not conform to this narration for they will happen in Rajab not in Ramadan. So there is no point for worry and confusion. Allah knows best.
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