al-Tasrih bima Tawatar fi Nuzul al-Masih
- Author died
- 1353 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Islāmiyyah
al-Tasrih bima Tawatar fi Nuzul al-Masih (A Clarification of the Mass-Transmitted Reports Concerning the Descent of the Messiah) is a specialized hadith compendium by the Indian scholar Muhammad Anwar Shah al-Kashmiri (d. 1352 AH / 1933 CE) aimed at demonstrating the mass-transmitted status (tawatur) of narrations regarding the bodily ascent and end-times descent of Jesus ('Isa) .
Scope and Contents
The work gathers prophetic traditions and early reports to establish that the descent of Jesus is a definitive tenet of Islamic eschatology . In the original text, al-Kashmiri compiled over seventy prophetic hadiths—recorded as seventy-five or seventy-six in various counts—concerning the ascension and descent of Jesus, alongside twenty-five reports (athar) from the Companions and Successors . The material was structured and arranged by his student, the jurist Muhammad Shafi' .
In the course of citing these reports, the book incorporates numerous related accounts dealing with the emergence of the Antichrist (al-Dajjal), the tribes of Gog and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj), and the Mahdi . Within the work, al-Kashmiri also presents analytical deductions on eschatological events, such as his view that Jesus will not exercise political dominion over the entire globe, because the transmitted texts do not indicate such universal expansion for him .
Reception and Editions
The book has been regarded among modern scholars as one of the most comprehensive monographs on the descent of Jesus . However, it has also received criticism; it has been noted that al-Kashmiri included many weak hadiths without clarifying their grades of authenticity and that his source attributions are incomplete in many instances .
The text was edited and annotated by the Syrian scholar Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, who supplied ten additional hadiths that the author had omitted, as well as ten additional athar, bringing the total collection in his edition to eighty-six hadiths and thirty-five athar (121 reports in total) . Abu Ghudda's critical edition was first published in Aleppo in 1385 AH (1965 CE) by Maktab al-Matbu'at al-Islamiyyah and subsequently went through at least five editions .
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