My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Hadiths of this sort are allegorical. They are not particular and do not look to general places. Others refer to the religious differences that would afflict the Umma and indicate a single time, citing the Hijaz and Iraq as examples. In the ‘Abbasid period, numerous misguided sects came into being which harmed Islam, like the Mu‘tazila, the Rawāfid≥, Jabriyya, and atheists and heretics under various guises. During periods of serious turmoil regarding the Shari‘a and tenets of belief, numerous leading figures of Islam emerged like al‑Bukhari, Muslim, Imam al-A‘zam, Imam al-Shafi‘i, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam al-Ghazali, Gawth al-A‘zam, and Junayd al-Baghdadi, and quelled the religious dissension.
The victory continued for around three hundred years, but by way of politics, the sects of the people of misguidance covertly brought down on the Muslims the dissension of Hulagu and Jenghiz. Both Hadiths, and Imam ‘Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) explicitly indicate this dissension together with its date.
Then since the dissension of the present time is one of the most serious, both numerous Hadiths and numerous Qur’anic allusions give news of it, together with the date. Making an analogy with this, when a Hadith mentions in general fashion the stages the Umma will pass through, it sometimes points out the date of a particular event within the generality, by way of an example.
Various parts of the Risale‑i Nur have made certain interpretations of allegorical Hadiths such as these, the meanings of which are not completely understood. The Twenty‑Fourth Word and Fifth Ray elucidate this truth by means of principles.