A few points need to made concerning the birth of Imam Zaman (as):

1- All of the hadiths on this subject aren’t weak, and there are also “sahih”, “mowathaq” and “hasan” (terms referring to different types of authentic hadiths) ones amongst them.  Moreover, the narrators of these narrations who have been discredited in some places, have also been considered reliable and trustworthy in others.

2- It must be noted that many of the hadiths that have been considered weak by recent scholars, were all considered authentic ones to early scholars, but because their criteria for authentic hadiths differs from that of scholars today, they would merely rely on any hadiths that they were sure had been issued from the imams without paying much attention to the chain of narrators.  Therefore, some of the narrations that might not be considered authentic today, were authentic to them.

3- Even in the case of most of these hadiths being weak, since they are so high in number, with various writers and narrators, some of them “strengthen” other ones and make up for their weaknesses thus making anyone who sees all of them together certain about the birth of Imam Zaman (as).  In other words, both Shias and Sunnis have narrated hadiths on the birth of Imam Zaman (as) and this matter is clear and accepted by all.  Of course these hadiths don’t reach the level of tawatur lafdhi (meaning that one can't claim that all of the mentioned hadiths are the same or very similar to each other in the phrases used in the hadiths making them even more reliable), yet they reach the level of tawatur ma’nawi (meaning that all of them are conveying the same message using different phrases and words, making anyone reading them certain about its true).