RES OURCES28 (1874): 627-59; 29 (1875): 162-67, in which he pointed out Syriac
and Greek connections. Brief standard interpretations are provided by
D. B. Macdonald, "al-Mahdi," EI(l), III: 111-15, and 1. Veccia Va-
glieri,"Ibn al-Ash'ath," EI(2), 11: 715-19. A. Abel's "Changements
politiques et litterature eschatologique dans le monde musulman," SI
2 (1954), pp. 23-43, has useful suggestions and connections. C. 1.
Geddes examined expressions about the Qa~tani in the first century
of the Hijra in "The Messiah in South Arabia," MW 57 (1967): 311-
- Recently W. Madelung has suggested that propagandistic pro-
ZubayrI lJadtth circulated during the second fitna were turned into
apocalyptic predictions a generation later in his "'Abd Allah b. al-
Zubayr and the Mahdi," ]NES 40 (1981): 291-305, which also has
a biography of the erstwhile Basran 'Abdullah ibn al-I:Iarith ibn Naw-
fal on pages 297 to 305. A. A. Sachedina's Islamic Messianism: The
Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi'ism (Albany, 1981) is mostly sub-
sequent theory and unconcerned with this early period.
There are many more sources and scholarly works on all of these
subjects than have been cited here. But anyone who consults these will
find the rest. The literature on each subject opens out onto different
issues and vantage points. Each is worth pursuing and on each a great
deal remains to be done.