that direction and it was as he said. And the first of the trials that arose, arose from the direction of the east and they were the reason for the splitting of the Muslim ranks, and this is what Satan loves and delights in. Likewise, the innovations appeared from that direction." Ibn Hajr quoted al-Khattabi as saying: "The najd is in the direction of the east, and for the one who is in Madeenah then his Najd would be the desert of Iraaq and its regions for this is to the east of the People of Madeenah. The basic meaning of Najd is that which is raised/elevated from the earth in contravention to al-Gawr for that is what is lower than it. Tihaamah [the coastal plain along the south-western and southern shores of the Arabian Peninsula] is entirely al-Gawr and Mecca is in Tihaamah.'[...] by this [saying of al-Khattaabee] the weakness of the saying of ad-Daawodee is understood that 'Najd is in the direction of Iraq' [min Nahiya al-Iraq] for he suggests that Najd is a specific place. This is not the case, rather everything that is elevated with respect to what adjoins it is called Najd and the lower area called Gawr." The celebrated 12th-century historian Ali ibn al-Athir, who had frequently traveled to Iraq during the era of Saladin and had written his monumental work al-Kamil fi at-Tarikh (The Complete History), writes in his work 'al-Nihâyah' ; "Najd is the highland region. This name is given to area beyond the Hijâz towards Iraq". It is also related that Imam Nawawi in his Sharh Saheeh Muslim 2/29 stated that this hadith had to with the Dajjal or Antichrist coming from the East. Contemporary theories Traditional Sunni Scholars view A number of authors have claimed that the hadith refers to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the patronym of the Wahhabi movement. It is accounted that the origin of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab is from the modern day Najd region of Saudi Arabia which happens to be the only surviving region that carried on the title of 'Najd' after the geographical codification regardless that there were several distinct locations known previously as 'Najd'. This theory is generally accepted by number of scholars from Sunni movement including Barelvi Movement and reputed Al-Azhar University scholars, they identified Wahhabism as the predicted "Horn of the Devil", or the Islamic Dajjal. However evidence can be cited