748 H) agrees with him...

748 H) agrees with him: على شرط البخاري ومسلم Upon the standard of al-Bukhari and Muslim. ^3 Dr. al-Bastawi also has this verdict on the hadith : إسناده حسن. Its chain is hasan .[^4] This athar , which has the hukm of a marfu’ hadith due to its nature, reveals two primary facts about the close companions of Imam al-Mahdi.

First, their number will be 313, the universally accepted number of the Badr warriors as well as that of the soldiers of Talut, ‘alaihi al-salam , who crossed the river with him. And, also, they will be from the best of Allah’s creation since the start of existence. [^1]: Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah al-Hakim al-Naysaburi, al-Mustadrak ‘ala al-Sahihayn (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah; 1st edition, 1411 H) [annotator: Mustafa ‘Abd al-Qadir ‘Aṭa], vol. 4, p. 596, # 8659 [^4]: Dr.

‘Abd al-‘Alim ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Bastawi, al-Mahdi al-Muntazar fi Dhaw-i al-Ahadith wa al-Athar al-Sahihah wa Aqwal al-‘Ulama wa Ara al-Firaq al-Mukhtalifah (Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm; 1st edition, 1420 H), p. 208, # 10 Previous…