Claiming to Be the Mahdi (IslamQA, Maliki Fiqh)

A fiqh answer published on islamqa.org under its Maliki school section, attributed to Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, responding directly to a specific claimant's assertion of being the Mahdi. Read here directly for its own characterization of such claims in general, not for any single case: "This man is most probably a liar. He is claiming a status that he does not have," and its own summary description of the true Mahdi as a righteous man who will come at the end of time to lead Muslims in prayer when Isa descends, with the classical signs collected in works such as al-Qurtubi's At-Tadhkirah, some of which the answer itself notes are of doubtful authenticity. Mainstream Sunni fiqh's own standing position, not scholarship about the hadith's historical origin.