Where do the Holy Qur’an and the hadith foretell the Messiah and the Mahdi?

Most clearly at the opening of Surah Al-Jumu‘ah. It announces that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) will be at work again in a later age among another people. The hadith about Salman the Persian explains that this means a man from that people who brings faith back.

The opening of Surah Al-Jumu‘ah first speaks of the first coming of the Holy Prophet (saw). God raised him among people who knew no scripture. He recited God’s verses to them, purified them and taught them the Book and the wisdom behind it. In this way people living in manifest error were transformed from the ground up. At that point the statement seems complete.

But the next verse opens a new view. It speaks of other people who have not yet met the first and will later be joined to them. The verse after that calls this a favour of God which He gives to whom He pleases. This makes clear that it is not the Holy Prophet (saw) himself who comes a second time. Someone comes who represents him so perfectly that his coming is like the Prophet coming again.

The companions understood this at once and asked who these people were. The Holy Prophet (saw) placed his hand on Salman the Persian, the only non-Arab present. In doing so he answered several questions at once. It concerns a distant time in which faith has almost left the earth, even though the Book and the traditions are still there. And the renewer does not come from Arabia but from another people.

In the hadith this renewer is called the Messiah, the son of Mary, and the Mahdi. The second hadith above adds that he will be an Imam from among the Muslims themselves. So the question is not whether a Messiah will come, but whether it will be the earlier one himself or someone born in his spirit and character.