Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī’s Encounter with Imam al-Mahdi

It is narrated that one day, while Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī was conducting a lesson with his students, a man entered the gathering. His appearance bore signs of dignity and grandeur. He approached Shaykh al-Anṣārī and asked:

“What is the ruling concerning a woman whose husband has been transformed into another form?”
It should be noted that such a situation is not ordinarily encountered among Muslims and, therefore, no explicit ruling concerning such a case is found in the commonly known books of Islamic jurisprudence.

Shaykh al-Anṣārī replied:

“In my view, if the man has been transformed into an animal, the woman must observe the waiting period (ʿiddah) and may marry another man after the waiting period has ended, because the man is still alive and possesses a soul.

However, if the man has been transformed into an inanimate object, the woman must observe the waiting period until that object is destroyed or ceases to exist, because in this case the man is considered to be like a dead person.”
The man then repeated three times:

“You are a mujtahid.”
He then stood up and left the gathering.

Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī realized that the man had been Imam al-Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance) and that, through this encounter, the Imam had affirmed his qualification as a mujtahid.

Shaykh al-Anṣārī immediately instructed his students:

“Go and find that man!”
The students searched for him as much as they could, but they were unable to find him.

After this incident, Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī began allowing people to follow his rulings in Islamic jurisprudence and made his treatise of jurisprudence available to those who wished to follow his legal opinions.

Note
Mujtahid: A qualified Islamic jurist who possesses the scholarly ability to derive religious rulings from authoritative Islamic sources.