Concerning the second part of the verse...

Concerning the second part of the verse: “ inna al-ardh yarithuha ‘ibadiya as-salihun ” (“My servants, the righteous, shall inherit the earth”), Tabarsi reports its meaning from several commentators: 1- Some define the word ardh as the earth of Heaven. So the verse means: “My righteous servants shall inherit the earth of [1]* Majma’ al-Bayan*, Vol. 16, p. 170 Heaven”. According to this view, this verse does not concern the Mahdi .

2- Some define the word as the same Earth we are living in and which will belong to the Umma of the . As the Prophet says: “The Earth was gathered for me, and the Eastern and Western parts of it were offered to me. And soon the Kingdom of my Community ( Umma ) will recover all of them.” [1] Regarding this verse, Imam Baqir asserts that these righteous servants are the of the Mahdi at the End of Time.

To confirm these statements, there is a tradition that both the Shi’ites and the Sunnites report as emanating from the Prophet: “Even if there remains only a day on the Earth, God will prolong it until He will bring forth a pious man from my progeny so that he will fill the earth with justice and equity as it was filled with oppression and tyranny.” [2] After having reported that the verse concerns the Mahdi , Shaykh Tabarsi mentions a tradition which denies the Mahdi and gives his own opinion.

He writes that, in his work al-Ba’th wa an-Nushur , Imam Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Husayn Bayhaki cites several traditions in this regard; his grandson ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad also reported all of these in the [1] فأريت مشارقها و مغاربها و سيبلغ ملك أمتي ما رؤي لي منها.

قال (ص) : روئيت لي الأرض، [2] قال النبي (ص) : لو لم يبق من الدنيا الا يوم واحد لطول الله ذلك اليوم حتى يبعث رجلا صالحا من أهل بيتي يملأ الأرض عدلا و قسطا كما قد ملئت ظلما و جورا year 517 AH, but the tradition reported from Abu ‘Abdullah Hafez from Muhammad ibn Khaled from Aban ibn Saleh from Hasan from Anas ibn Malek, claiming that the Prophet said: ‘The people are living in difficulty and miserliness ....

and Mahdi is no one but ‘Isa ibn Maryam’ [1] is first of all a tradition reported only by Muhammad ibn Khaled, and secondly both the latter and Abu ‘Abdullah Hafez are unknown.