Raj'a (the return to the world)

The raj'a (return) is a belief connected with the belief in the Mahdi, which according to Ahmad Amin in Duha al-Islam many of the Imamiyya hold. Its substance is that the Prophet ﷺ, Ali, al-Hasan, al-Husayn, and the rest of the imams, and their opponents such as Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Mu'awiya, and Yazid, will return to the world after the Mahdi appears. ²

Then whoever attacked the imams, usurped their rights, or killed them will be punished; then they will all die, and then be brought back to life on the Day of Resurrection. He relates from al-Sharif al-Murtada that Abu Bakr and Umar will be crucified on a tree in the time of the Mahdi. Ahmad Amin describes it as more deeply strange than the belief in the Mahdi; this is the author's description. ²

The earliest to speak of the return in the first age was Abd Allah ibn Saba', for he used to say that Ali would return. ³

This is a picture from a single non-Imami source, and it needs a further source from the books of the Imamiyya.