The Mahdi Unveiled

We are living in complex times, where the world is at a make or break juncture. In this precarious setting, humanity is treading the tightrope to survival.

Looking back at the evolutionary cycle of human life, one notices a sharp dichotomy in the developmental progress of man’s sociology. This can be broadly categorized as the negation of the materialist in the west and the refusal of the ascetic in the east. The result has been the post-modern disillusionment in western culture and the over-mystification of life in the east. But again, nothing is a chance and everything unfolds according to plan. This imbalance was a prerequisite for the eventual evolutionary leap intended for mankind. The great bankruptcy of life due to exaggerated spirituality and the triumphant mastery of this world’s powers and possessions have progressed to a collective exhaustion of the human will. The intellect which looked for solutions in the one term of matter, has not found the answer it was searching for either. Therefore the time grows ripe for the tendency of the world to move towards a new and comprehensive understanding of reality and an integrated inner and outer experience towards fulfillment and completion. This is the setting in which the world awaits the Mahdi, the Messiah, the Maitreya, the Avtaar or the second-coming of Christ.

The term "Mahdi" [divinely guided one] has come to denote an eschatological figure whose presence will usher an era of justice and true belief prior to the end of time. The study of end of time or eschatology, incorporates the concepts of afterlife, and the end of the world. The eschatological views of the Quran are closely related to concepts mentioned in other Near Eastern monotheistic traditions. The Quran emphasizes the inevitability of resurrection and judgment, and the eternal division of the righteous and wicked into heaven and hell. Before the final resurrection, however, the terrible tribulation of the last days will fall upon the earth. Although the time for this great calamity has not been specified, but it’s nearness is reiterated in the Quran. The general picture is much the same as given in the Bible. Great earthquakes are expected to rock the earth, setting mountains in motion. The sky will be split and the heavens will be stripped off, rolled up like a parchment scroll. The sun will cease to shine and the stars will fall upon the earth. The graves will be opened up and the earth will bring forth it’s burdens. People will seek to flee the Divine wrath and all will bow before God. In traditional Islamic thought the day of judgment is preceded by a great cosmic conflict when the forces of Satan, represented by the false Messiah Al-Dajjal and Gog and Magog, come into combat with the forces of God led by the Mahdi and Jesus.

The Dajjal who is often equated with the Anti-Christ, will appear as a sure sign of the last days. He will appear for a limited period of time, sometimes said to be forty years and sometimes forty days, causing widespread corruption and oppression on earth. His false teachings and miracles will lead many astray and he will bring along a vast supply of food and water to tempt those who have been suffering. Although the Quran makes no mention of such a person, but he is prominent in the hadith and later Islamic literature.

The origin of the word Mahdi also cannot be traced to the Quran, but rather to a strictly honorific title applied to the Prophet sw and the first four caliphs by the earliest Muslims. He nonetheless plays a major role in Islamic eschatology. He is not a savior from sins, as Christ is to the Christians, nor is he merely a national Messiah as conceived in Judaism, rather he is meant to bring truth and justice to all humanity. During the early years of Islam when it enjoyed uninterrupted military successes, the term Mahdi had a simply messianic relevance. But, by the late seventh century, after a period of considerable political turbulence, the term began to be used for referring to a hoped-for ruler who would restore Islam to it’s pristine form. With the passage of time humane rule became a distant prospect. After the Abbasid revolution in 750, the figure of the Mahdi took on an even more messianic aura. Although the Mahdi does occur in the Sunni tradition, he is more significant in the Shia belief. His role is particularly important in Twelver Shiaism, whose doctrine virtually revolves around this messianic figure.

In 873 the eleventh imam of the Twelvers died and his disciples claimed that he had an infant son who was hidden for safekeeping. Between 815 and 941 there were agents who claimed to be in contact with the young imam. The agents promised that at the right time the hidden twelfth imam would emerge out of hiding and redress the community’s wrongs. As the years passed, the figure acquired an even more messianic character. After the elapse of a normal human life span, it began to be believed that the absent imam was in fact the Mahdi, who was being held in supernatural occultation. The task of the believers was supposed to be faithful and alert, watching for the signs for his reappearance. The Sunni notion of a Mahdi has been one who would be chosen for office rather than returning from hiding. Amongst many of the signs accompanying his emergence , some are: his public disclosure on Ashura; his reappearance at the Kaaba in Mecca; the rising of the sun in the west; unusual eclipses in the holy month of Ramadan; the establishment of his capital in Kufa; and the entire world accepting Islam. Both Sunni and Shia traditions agree that he will usher in a period of great abundance and restore integrity of the Sharia.

Due to the popularity of the Mahdi, there has been an abundance of claimants to this title in Islamic history. The origins of the Bahai movement in early nineteenth century Iran are closely tied to Shia eschatological ideas. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad [1835-1908], founder of the Ahmadiyah movement in the Indo-Pak, claimed to be the Mahdi, drawing on Hindu, Christian and Islamic sources.
Apart from this were the rise and success of the Sudanese Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad [d 1885], Muhammad Ubaydullah [d 934], the first Fatimid caliph, who came to power by manipulating Mahdist expectations and Shia sentiment. Several Mahdis arose in Egypt, leading uprisings against both French occupation and Egyptian government rule. By the end of the nineteenth century, Mahdist revolts against European imperialism became rife, occurring in India, Algeria, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. Common to all these movements was the perceived corruption of Islamic ideals and nefarious influence of Western political and cultural thought. Such thinking inspired the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by a Saudi Arabian Mahdi. Given the power of religious sentiment and the flexibility of conditions regarding his appearance, claims to the emergence of Mahdi can be expected wherever Islamic interests are perceived to be threatened. However, the fact is that this messianic figure has come to assume a role beyond just the boundaries of Islamic culture.

In the present day, there are organizations as the like of Share International, a worldwide network of individuals and groups, working to make known the fact that Maitreya, or the world teacher as they call him, and his group are now among us. This organization is a member of the NGO community at the United Nations. This so-called master is said to have been making mysterious appearances in the past. In June 1988 he was said to have been spotted at a prayer meeting in Nairobi. Presently he is supposed to be guiding his associates through telepathic communication.

In view of the divergent Islamic perspectives of Eschatology and it’s related Mahdist doctrine, which also includes the second coming of Christ, leading to the belief amongst some circles that Jesus is the Mahdi, one should not be loath to examining the idea of symbolical exposition.

Shaikh Badruddin Simawna [d 1420] a scholar and saint of the Ottoman realm proposed an explanation of Islamic eschatology in symbolical terms. He says about the return of Christ, that the Prophet Jesus, is always alive in spirit, but his blessed body is dead and gone. Al-Quran 3:54 "And they planned and Allah also planned and Allah is the best of planners. When Allah said, "O Jesus, I will take you and raise you in My Presence and save you from those who disbelieve", his being was raised in a spiritual ascension cleansed of the natural elements of this world. And Allah says, "And for their saying, "we have killed Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah", and they killed him not, nor did they cause his death on the cross, but he was made to appear to them as such." 4:57
He was saved from the cross and lived his natural life amongst his people, and his physical being died a natural death. As Allah quotes him, "I was a witness among them. But when you did cause me to die, You were the Watcher over them." 5:17.
Thus in reality his return is a moral and spiritual one.

His or the Mahdi’s coming is meant to be accompanied by signs such as:
The rising of the sun from the west;
The invasion of the Yellow People;
Appearance of Gog and Magog;
Dabbat al Ard, the miraculous creature;
The rule of the Dajjal and his killing by Christ.

According to Shaikh Badruddin, these signs are here now and always were. The spiritual and moral presence of Jesus has forever been combating Dajjal. Dajjals are the people of all times , whose lives are consecrated to being world bound. They are the tyrants, arrogant ones, claiming to be rulers and owners of others. Dajjal is the manifestation of the false reality of the world. His being blind in the right eye, is proof for his inability to recognize the truth.
Jesus on the other hand, is the manifestation of the truth. His combat with the Dajjal is the fight between truth and falsehood. The Kurukshetra or the battleground of the Mahabharata signified the war between good and evil for upholding the cause of dharma. And today’s Kurukshetra is the human heart, where good and evil have locked horns for the ultimate victory. Whether the altruism of Christ consciousness prevails over the tyranny of the Dajjal, represented by the nafs-e-ammara, remains yet to be seen.
Dabbat al Ard is a miraculous creature who is said to hold in one hand the staff of Moses, and in the other the seal of Solomon, who is to touch with his staff the ones who have submitted to Allah, and who is to brand the faithless with the seal of Solomon. In reality he is the symbol of conscience, which blames the ego for its wrongdoing. In it’s one hand the staff of Moses leads to the inspired state of obedience to the Lord; while in the other hand the seal of Solomon is the condemnation of those who are slaves to their egos.
The appearance of the yellow people is the predominance of animal nature in man.

Gog and Magog appear when falsehood, crime, immorality, shamelessness, and madness appear as normal and preferable things. These are the brute forces of latter days, that have begun to rise tide upon tide, waiting to be vanquished by the humility of presence, the power of devotion and the unceasing Love for the Ultimate Reality. The apocalypse is here and now within each one of us, and this inward struggle is represented in a wider scope on the earth plane in our physical environment. Just as man is the microcosm and the universe is contained within him, the conflicts of his inner world find outward expression in worldly strife and tribulation. The battle we are fighting internally is reflected on the outside as well. Unless we subdue the rebels inside us, we cannot hope to quell the uprisings of the worldly set up. There is a Dajjal and a Mahdi in each of us. The success of the one inside of us is the victory of the same in the outer world. First this right guidance must find sovereignty within us then the Mahdi may become the Sultan of the world we live in. When the Lord of the Alimeen is said to reside inside man, nearer to him than his jugular vein, then why do we go looking for the Mahdi in every vale, hill and country? It is a turning within, an involution that churns the apocalyptical sequence. The shaking of the earth, the shattering of the mountains, the falling of the stars, the darkening of the sun, these are all transformational phenomena of the Spirit’s resurrection. The spirit that was buried under the heavy earth of physicality, is raised to life after experiencing it’s stifled state of existence. And this resurrection is preceded by the inescapable plunge into the raging fires of alchemy; where the dross is removed; the Mahdi surmounts the opposition of the Dajjal. The awaited savior is not going to land on some minaret of an eastern mosque, but he certainly must emerge from the depths of the human soul to right the wrongs of a long and deep woven tale of human deception.

Till when must Reality witness it’s massacre at the hands of usurpers? Reality that is reflected in the various codes of the one Message that came down age after age awaits it’s resurrection. The usurpers are the upholders of the misguided application of the Message that was manipulated by the dark forces of human existence. The true "hidayaah" remains rocking in the cradle of universal civilization, like a derelict babe of strife, waiting to be claimed by the Mahdi of the collective human soul.

The rising of the sun from the west is the dominance of the flesh over the soul.
The appearance of Mahdi, the last imam, is thus the realization of what Allah says, "I have breathed into man from My Own Spirit. " [15:29]
This is the growth of the seed of Muhammad s.w, in the perfect human being. The seed will grow into the causal mind, the all-encompassing mercy, the Divine Essence. The created universe is unique and not related to time. The end of the worlds is a blessed state in which attributes disappear and the essence remains. The end of the world for each one of us comes when the soul leaves the body. The assembly of the body and souls together on the day of resurrection is the gathering and returning of the souls to their origin. The universe lasts as long as man is in it.

The creed of the Mahdi is not a new belief, but it is the unveiling of the only True Belief under the garb of multiple vehicles of transmission. Once this is recognized, all differences of creed and religious strife will of themselves be pulverized and the light of Unity shall of itself shine forth. When humanity develops the True sight that sees, then how will the enlightened glance be deluded by the phantasmal prism of religious diversity?

Now is the time to prove whether Islam is a vintage automobile with a hollow interior or is it the Islam [the Truth] that was meant to be transported through the branded Islam [it’s body-politic]. It is only when a community becomes remiss in delivering the responsibility placed on it by the Divine that it’s role becomes ineffectual and it loses the vantage granted by Providence. The Quran testifies to this by saying that Allah replaces a people by a community that is better, when the former move away from right guidance. Muslims were given the special responsibility of being the guardians of the Universal Deen. The universality of Islam is an essential ingredient of the final Message. By the very nature of it’s universalism did it become the last revealed message of God. The corruption of it’s intended message at the hands of narrow-minded clerics and interpreters of religious law has led to it’s present bankruptcy vis a vis universal appeal and acceptance. Instead of carrying placards of Jihad and anti-west slogans, if we as a Muslim nation were to carry the true Muhammadan Ideal of mercy for the worlds, there would still be hope for the emergence of the Mahdi of human dignity and conscience for saving the world.


Written by Naila Amat-un-Nur. The author is a Sufi Salika [a student on the sufi path] and writer/researcher of spirituality and current Islamic issues.