The characteristics of al-Mahdi and how to identify him
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question : What? He has characteristics by which he is known. How do we know them if he is on earth?
Answer : They mentioned that he resembles the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that his name is like his name, and that he is from the Banu Hashim, from the descendants of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). However, the thing that is near to mass transmission is that he will emerge. As for his description, if something is established regarding it, it is obligatory to act upon it; otherwise, it is not.
Answer : They mentioned that he resembles the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that his name is like his name, and that he is from the Banu Hashim, from the descendants of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). However, the thing that is near to mass transmission is that he will emerge. As for his description, if something is established regarding it, it is obligatory to act upon it; otherwise, it is not.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، [430] أسئلة على ما سبق في أشراط الساعة - ابن عثيمين — youtube.com (4:02)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.