He said regarding Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik: "I said to him, 'The Caliph, without a doubt, is the Mahdi and the rightly guided ruler.'" And similarly in the poetry of Jarir. Then the word began to transform little by little, so they specialized the name Mahdi to mean one person. And it is mentioned in the book "Asad al-Ghabah" that they called Ali a guided Mahdi. Then they applied the word to Al-Husayn after his martyrdom, saying, "The Mahdi, son of the Mahdi." And when Al-Husayn was killed and Al-Hasan died, a group believed it was natural for his son Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah to inherit from Ali spiritually. Just as others saw that the inheritors of Ali were only Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn, because they were the sons of Ali from Fatima, the daughter of the Messenger, peace be upon him. As for Ibn al-Hanafiyyah, he was the son of Ali, but not from Fatima, but from a woman from Banu Hanifah, a concubine or a freed slave, according to the scholars' differing opinions on that. And this Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, who was the son of Ali as we mentioned, was a learned man, spiritually knowledgeable, inheriting spirituality from his father, and strong in body. His father used to send him to fight on his behalf more than he sent Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn. When he was asked about that, he said: "Indeed, Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn are my eyes, and I am their hand. So he defends his eyes with his hand." And they recount that