Name and lineage of Sufyany

Rebellion of " Sufyany " is said to be one of the most important signs of emergence of Mahdi. According to some Islamic narratives and traditions, a person called Sufyany will leads an anti-Mahdavi rebellion at that time. This paper attempts to examine the name and lineage of Sufyany with the descriptive and analytical method in some Shiite Hadith. The result of our search indicates that Ottoman is most likely the real name of Sufyan. There are several possibilities about his lineage, such as assignment to a place called "Sufyan", or attribution to a man named "Sufyan", a virtual assignment to Abu Sufyan Ibn Harb, the actual assignment to Abu Sufyan Ibn Harb and a western lineage. Amongst these possibilities, the most anecdotally evidenced are real assignment to the Umayyad and Abu Sufyan ibn Harb. Umayyad's racial assignment to Romans has also been discussed in addition.