It seems as if they feel compelled to accept these...

It seems as if they feel compelled to accept these traditions and thus they are required to accept his birth and long life as well. Is long life something incredible? Something might seem incredible before it happens, but once it happens it is no longer incredible. For example, you believe that something is impossible, but if it happens for once you can no longer be cocksure about its impossibility and your certainty will decrease.

Now if the same phenomenon happens for twice and thrice, your certainty will also decrease correspondingly. If this process continues to happen your certainty will continue to decrease. Now in response to what Taftazani has said, it must be pointed out that Allah has given long lives to (many including) Noah, Khidr and Jesus Christ. The belief in Jesus's long life is an essential belief among Muslims and no one can deny that Jesus is alive now.

Similarly based on Sunni traditions, Dajjal is alive now and they believe firmly that he is alive now. Now that there have been many people in the world, who have lived long lives, no one can deny as improbable Imam Mahdi's long life. The discoveries and inventions we observe everyday also make impossibles possible. The belief cherished by Taftazani and his likes that long life is improbable gets increasingly weakened as history proceeds ahead.

[To explain it further], some of our scholars have said that it may look queer if someone claims that he is able to walk on the surface of water, but if he does it for once and people watch it, they will somewhat change their views concerning walking on water's surface. If he does it for many times, it will become a natural act and everyone will easily accept it.

Ibn Taymiyya and denial of Khidr's being alive He basically refuses to accept that Khidr is alive now saying that most scholars are of the view that he is dead by now.[^2] He rejects the fact the Khidr is alive by now in order to be able to say that the point that Mahdi is alive by now is very unlikely.

Opponents of Ibn Taymiyya's opinion Contrary to Ibn Taymiyya, in his al-Isaba , Ibn Hajar Asqalani considers Khidr as one of the companions of the Holy Prophet(S).[^3] Likewise, in his Tahdib al-Asma wa al-Lughat, Hafiz Nawavi, a sixth or seventh century scholar openly says that according to most scholars Khidr is alive now.[^4] This shows that Khidr was alive when Nawavi was living.