Mahdi Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

To understand the clerical rulers of Iran, we need to learn about the genesis of their religious faith, Shi’a Islam, and the pivotal place of the Mahdi. Examination of the vast Islamic literature shows that the present sect of Shi’a Islam has evolved from a mix of cultural, political, economic, and religious influences. I shall outline, in a summary form, how the belief in the Mahdi, the revered Imam whose advent is expected by the Shi’a faithful, crystallized over time. The Mahdi is expected to appear and save the world when it has reached the depth of degradation and despair. Below is a brief chronological account of how Shiism and the belief in the Mahdi as its pivotal figure were formed.

Muhammad ruled with an iron fist while alive, and no one contested his authority. He designated no heir, left no will, oral or written, and had no male issue from his wives and slave women to inherit the office. Some believers, however, felt that the prophet wished for Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, to assume the Ummah’s leadership. At the same time, a vast majority opted for the Arabs’ traditional patriarchal seniority-based practice by choosing Abu-Bakr as the Caliph.

Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s oldest high disciple and the father of Muhammad’s nine-year-old child-bride, Ayesha, assumed the position of the first Caliph and died shortly thereafter. Umar ibn al-Khattaab followed him. Then, Uthman ibn Affan became the third Caliph, and finally, Ali ibn Abu Talib.

Ali was considered by his admirers to be the greatest Muslim warrior and by his detractors as a vicious killer. Two of Ali’s sons, Hassan and Hussein, were viewed similarly. Ali was murdered, according to one version, by one of his own followers who resented Ali’s capitulation to the Caliphate hierarchy. That is, the assassin and his like-minded Muslims felt that Ali betrayed Muhammad by not fighting to be his immediate successor and by consenting to be the fourth Caliph. Another version of his death is that a Persian warrior by the name of Brahman Jazyyeh killed Ali, avenging the death of the numberless Persians that Ali and his people had slaughtered.

Ali reportedly killed untold numbers of Islam’s enemies, including Persians, with his much-feared sword that had its own name: Zulfiqar. His followers addressed him as Amir-ul-Momeneen (Commander of the Faithful).

The death of Ali transformed the feuding among the various Muslim factions into open warfare. Some decided to follow Ali’s son Hassan, who contenders soon killed; then the faction adopted another son of Ali Hussein as their Imam. Hence, to these people, Ali was the first Imam; an appointee of Allah, without a firm basis for this belief. Ali was considered sinless and pure (taher) and immune from error. Over time, eleven males from Ali’s line were taken in succession as Pure Imams.

Thus, the 12-Imamate Shi’a originated with Ali as the first, Hassan as the second, and his brother Hussein as the third Imam.

Hussein was killed in a fierce lopsided battle with Muslim opponents of the Imamate (those who opposed the system of Imamate leadership which is based on the hereditary succession of leaders from the line of Ali.) The two major divisions in Islam diverged with Sunnis opting for the elective Caliphate and Shiites for the hereditary Imamate.

After Hussein’s death, some of his followers claimed that he had not died and that he would return. Others took to his brother Muhammad, and then later, many took to Hussein’s son, Zayn al-Abidin, as their Imam; and when he died, many followed his son, Muhammad Al-Baqir.

After Ali’s death, a strong belief began to form among his grieving followers that he had not died and that he would return to assume his rule. This belief in the return continued and eventually metamorphosed into the notion of Mahdi, or the Sahib-ul-Zaman (the Lord of the Age).

When al-Baqir died, there were once again elements from among the Shi’a who denied his death and claimed that he would return one day, while others settled on his son Ja’far al-Sadiq as their Imam.

When Ja’far al-Sadiq died, there was mass splintering among the Shi’a. Each of his sons, Isma’il, Abdullah, Muhammad, Zakariyya, Ishaq, and Musa Al Kazem, was claimed by various groups to be their Imam. Also, a faction believed that Jaa’far did not die; he had simply disappeared from view and would return one day.

The same splintering and confusion happened after the death of Moosa. Some denied his death, believing that he will return, some following his son Ahmad as their Imam, while others chose his other son Ali al-Rida .

After al-Rida, many took his son Muhammad al-Jawwad, also known as al-Taqi, and after him his son Ali al-Hadi -, or an-Naqi. At the death of Ali al-Hadi, they adopted his son Hassan al-Askari as their new- and 11th- Imam.

The above is a very brief synopsis of the tumultuous genesis of the Shi’a adoption of the Imamate belief, which climaxed at the year 254 AH: the time when a major section of the Shi’a accepted as their Imam the 22-year old Hassan, son of Ali al-Hadi, and 10th lineal descendant of Ali and his wife Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter). Six years later, Hassan al-Askari is lying on his deathbed, but unlike any of his forefathers, he leaves no offspring, no one to whom the Shi’a might turn as their new Imam.

The Shiites, who had been referring to Hassan al-Askari as their Imam, were thrown into mass disarray. Did this mean the end of the Imamate? They felt that the end of the Imamate would mean the end of Shiism. They were not prepared for that.

The confusion that reigned among the Shi’a after the death of Hassan al-Askari is recorded by his contemporary Shi’a writer, Hassan ibn Moosa an-Nawbakhti, who reports the emergence of at least 14 sects among the followers of Hassan al-Askari, each one with a different view of the future of the Imamate and the identity of the next Imam. Another contemporary Shi’a writer, Sa’d ibn Abdullah al-Qummi, records 15 sects, and a century later, the historian al-Mas’udi lists 20 separate sects.

At least four major divisions of belief emerged to deal with the crisis of not having a legitimate male from the line of Muhammad to turn to as Imam. One group accepted the death of Hassan al-Askari and the fact that he left no offspring. To them Imamate had ended in like manner that Nubuwat (mission of Muhammad himself) had ended with his death. Yet, some in this group retained hope for the advent of a new Imam.

Another group refused to accept the death of Hassan al- Askari, and claimed that he would return in the future to establish justice upon earth. The refusal to accept the death of an Imam and retain the belief in his future return goes back to the very early days of the Imamate line.

Yet another group bestowed the mantle of Imamate to Hassan’s brother Jaa’far.

The final major group headed by Uthman ibn Sa’id al-‘Amri claimed that Hassan al-Askari did in fact have a son, Muhammad, who had gone into hiding at the age of four for reasons of safety and no one but himself could have any contact with him. Uthman ibn Sa’id al-‘Amri further claimed that as Wakeel (representative) of the Imam, he was the one to collect money in the name of the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (descendants of Muhammad).

Hassan al-Askari’s own family denied the existence of any child of his, and divided his estate between his brother Jaa’far and his mother. Yet Uthman ibn Sa’id and his gang won the allegiance of the masses of the believers by denouncing Jaa’far as al-Kadhdhab (the Liar).

This school of thought ultimately became the dominant view in Shiism, with a new Wakeel following the death of a previous one.

With the passage of time, in-fighting among the various claimants for being the Wakeel exposed the scheme as nothing more than a way of extracting money from the gullible faithful. Yet, the belief in the Hidden Imam and his return remains a fundamental belief of Shiites.

To this day, the ever-supplicated cry of the Shi’a faithful is Ya Saheb-ul-Zaman (Lord of the Age Mahdi) hasten your return. Who is the much-prayed Mahdi? The four-year-old who never was? The four-year-old who went into hiding in a well, as some Shiites believe to this day—the well in Iran’s Jamkaran where president Ahmadinejad frequently visits, submits his written requests and receives his marching orders from the Hidden Imam to whom he claims he is accountable?

Debunking the belief in the Hidden Imam and his return is pivotal to the falsifying of Shiism and helping the long-deluded Muslims abandon a fiction that has ruled and ruined their lives for far too long.

The world is presently at its most wicked. It is beyond human help. It requires only a nudge to implode and prepare for the divine ruler, the Saheb-ul-Zaman (the Mahdi, the Lord of the Age) to come and set it aright. It is the sacred duty and privilege of every Muslim to do all he can to hasten the death of the old world and the birth of the global Islamic Ummah. Thus goes the thinking of Iran’s ruling mullahs and their hand-picked presidents.

It seems like the old millennialism thinking. The belief in supernatural intervention to set the world aright is scriptural to major religions, including Islam. The Jews have been earnestly supplicating the Lord for the Messiah to come, the Christians are impatiently awaiting the second coming of Christ, and, the Zoroastrians are convinced that Saoshayant is the one who shall come, defeat the trouble-making Ahriman — Satan — and make the creatures again pure. But this time around, a group of believers with tremendous resources are intent on forcing the issue, making the conditions so dire that they leave the reluctant Saheb-ul-Zaman no choice but to appear and assume his universal reign.

Up to this point, millennialism was a belief and a hope. No one ever aspired to or had the means of making the anticipated events come about. The matter was in the hands of God. The Muslims’ perennial prayer recited every day, posted in mosques and even on bumpers of vehicles has been, “O, Saheb-ul-Zaman, hasten your coming.” The prayer for the advent, thus far, has been limited to passive supplications of the faithful.

It is a well-established fact that beliefs are the potent impetus to action. If you believe your home is about to be burglarized, you secure the house and take other precautions. If you, under the influence of drugs, believe that a bug is burrowing into your skin, you may take a knife to your own body and try to dig the imaginary bug out.

Hence, it is shortsighted to dismiss the mullahs as a bunch of lunatics who are out of touch with reality and that they have no intention of doing catastrophic mischief to compel the Mahdi’s coming — maybe some arming of the Iraqi Shiites, a little support for Hezb’allah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine — but no, no major idiocy. After all, they are rational people and in touch with reality. Any large-scale troublemaking spells their doom as well. Thus goes rationalization — the greatest risky tranquilizer of the mind.

Rationalization, compounded by complacency and denial, can be deadly, particularly when adversaries have different realities. To the fanatic mullahs ruling Iran, Sahaeb-ul-Zaman is an absolute reality, and his promised advent is irrevocably ordained. This is their reality and their belief and they have every intention of leading their life according to them.

It is foolish for non-Muslims to dismiss the mullahs and the likes of the Taliban as a bunch of fringe lunatics who are going to go away simply by wishing for it. The Islamist reality is that non-Muslims are the ones who deserve to be done away with, they are the ones who have refused to submit to the summons of Allah for much too long, and, it is time for the faithful to get rid of them. This makes for a lopsided contest. The non-Muslims are passively wishing that the nightmarish surge of Islamism is only a temporary fringe phenomenon doomed to die on its own, while the other side is marshaling its huge destructive power to accomplish its aim by eradicating non-Muslims.

The cabal of fanatical mullahs ruling Iran has lost its patience, not only with the unbelievers but also with the Mahdi as well. They aim to force his arrival. The mullahs believe they have the means to make it impossible for the Mahdi to tarry any longer by causing unprecedented death and destruction — conditions deemed essential for his coming. The world must hit the very bottom before the savior of the world comes to the rescue, so they firmly believe.

The question is: What does prudence demand? Wishing the problem to go away is not a very effective solution in the same way that wishing for the Saheb-ul-Zaman to come has not been. Reasoning and negotiating with the mullahs and their ilk hold very little if any, lasting promise. There are always easy ways of denial and appeasement. We are very good at both practices. No, the Muslims have been around for ages. They make some trouble from time to time. But they are not all that bad and dangerous. We’ll get along. If we have to, we’ll even let them live by the Sharia — their stone-age laws — in our midst. We’ll be reasonable and they will come around. We’ll just have to get along. So goes the line.

One problem: The other side doesn’t think this way. The Islamofascists don’t believe in the notion of live and let live.” They believe that the earth is Allah’s and it has been sullied by the heathens, the unbelievers, and the kafir for far too long. Now that they have the means, they aim to make the world to their design and bring about the final solution — a nasty reminder of not too long ago Nazism.

Is this alarmist, or even hatemongering? You don’t believe Muslims can be that intolerant and hostile toward non-Muslims and that they’ll never go to the extremes? Do you know Muslims personally in your neighborhood or your workplace and they are nice people? The nice Muslims you know are presently small minorities in alien lands. They have to be nice, and they may indeed be nice. Yet, when the main force of Islam surges forward, these nice folks will either have to join it or be swept aside like the rest of the resisters.

The concern is not with individual Muslims who live as solid citizens in democratic societies. They may have developed a taste for the freedom democracy bestows or have simply learned to tolerate it. Our concern is with the gathering Islamic storm from the heart of Islamdom. To truly appreciate Islam, you must experience firsthand Islam in power. Take a quick trip to the lands of the Muslims and find out for yourself how horribly they treat the non-Muslims, even the “People of the book,” Jews and Christians. Try to have a Bible study group or build a church in Saudi Arabia and discover the benevolence of Islamic rule.

I urgently call on US politicians to redirect U.S. foreign policy in line with our nation’s lofty ideals and principles. I urge the Administration to proclaim its unequivocal support for the Iranian people and back that claim with concrete effective peaceful actions. It is the best investment that the U.S. can make to attract the powerful nation of Iran as a vital ally and concurrently refrain from foolishly undermining its present sole friend, Israel. Recall that it was the Iranian people’s massive magnificent movement against the re-election of the fraud Ahmadinejad that inspired the so-called “Arab Spring.” That movement has not stopped. It is ongoing.

The world is a laboratory where the experiment with Islam shows irrefutable results. To the extent that Islam rules any society, that society is stagnant, backward thinking, repressive and violent. The Islamic Republic of Iran represents the cutting edge for the newly petrodollar-invigorated Islam. It is determined to complete its task of ending the world of “Dar-ul-Harb” — the non-Muslim world to be warred upon — and establishing the “Dar-ul-Solh,” or “Dar-ul-Salam” — the Muslim world of the Ummah under the rule of the Mahdi. If achieving this aim hinges on the conflagration of a cataclysmic nuclear World War, the mullahs are happy to make it happen.

Tag Archive for: Mahdi

Genesis of Shi’a Islam