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Mahdi in Shi’ism
By: A. Toussi
In Imamite (Twelver) Shi’ism, the belief in the appearance of the Mahdi, the twelfth Imam descended from the Prophet who promised an end to corruption, has been a central aspect of the faith throughout its history, in contrast to the beliefs of Sunnism. This is not only a basic tenet of the creed, but also the foundation on which the entire spiritual edifice of the Imamite religion rests.
The belief in a temporary absence or occultation (ghayba) of the Mahdi and his eventual return in glory is also common. The idea of the Mahdi has a greater significance and presence in the lives of the Shi'ites than in any other religion and is the most important factor in the development of Shi’ism, where unshakeable belief in the advent of the Mahdi continues to be expressed in most of their daily prayers.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the spread of Western-style modernism, Messianic and eschatological aspirations largely disappeared from the mainstream Sunnite discourse, although important Mahdi-st movements emerged in the mid-nineteenth century to subsist well into the twentieth century in different parts of the Islamic world.
On the other hand, in the Shi’ite world, the desire to create a true Islamic community with a Messianic deliverance was more intense than in the Sunni world. In the decade leading up to the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were some attempts to reassess such themes as the nature of the hereafter, the coming of the Mahdi and the order he is expected to establish. Topics such as the duties of believers during the Occultation were more assertively linked to the questions of political legitimacy and clerical leadership on behalf of the Imam.
There was a gradual distancing from the traditional narrative of the apocalyptic end in favour of portraying the Imam’s return as an all-embracing revolution with this-worldly causes and consequences.
According to Shari’ati, Messianism and futurism in Shi’ite Islam were the outcomes of a “synthesis between the ideals and the realities” of Islam, an ambition to restore the ideals of Ali’s just rule... To reconstruct such an idealized past, Shari’ati believed, the disinherited (mustad’afin) of the earth should strive for a “classless society” in which justice and equality will triumph over exploitation, imperialism and tyranny.1
The difference between Sunnism and Shi’ism is a question of political succession and religious authority. There was the problem of the succession to the Prophet as leader of the community after his death. A small group backed Ali whom they believed to have been designated for this role by appointment (ta’yin) and testament.
They became known as his ‘partisans’ (shi’ah) while the majority agreed on Abu Bakr on the assumption that the Prophet left no instructions on this matter; they gained the name of ‘The people of tradition and consensus of opinion’ (ahl al-sunnah wa al-jama’ah). But more generally the Shi’ite of Ali, in the sense of those who backed and followed him among the Companions, already existed during the Prophet’s lifetime and there are several references to them in prophetic sayings.
Only with the death of the Prophet did they become crystallized as a group distinct from the Sunnis.2 They follow the family and successors of the Prophet (Twelve Imams) as their source for the understanding of the Qur'anic Revelation.
The Imam is the sustainer of the religious law and the guarantor of its continuation. The earth can never be devoid of the presence of the Imam, even if he be hidden or unknown. His duties are essentially to rule over the community as the Prophet's representative, to interpret religious science and law to men and to guide people in their spiritual life.
Like the Imams before him, the twelfth Imam is said to have had a miraculous birth. He was born on the fifteenth day of Sha’ban in the year 255 of the Hijrah. He came out of his mother’s womb prostrate in the attitude of prayer, pure and circumcised, raising his voice in the profession of faith (shahadah).
His mother, called Narjis (Narcissus), is believed to be the grand-daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, who disguised herself as a slave girl, and was captured during a Muslim expedition against Byzantine territory.
Long before her captivity, she was visited in her dreams by Fatimah, the venerable ancestress of the Imams and daughter of the Prophet, who instructed her in the Islamic faith and prepared her for the great role she was to play.
Finally, the Prophets Jesus and Muhammad, with their vicegerents Simon Peter (Shim’un) and Ali, appeared to the girl. Muhammad asked Jesus for Narjis's hand, and Ali and Simon Peter acted as witnesses to the marriage contract. Fatimah and the Virgin Mary also came to bless the sacred marriage.
From that time on, the 11th Imam, Hasan al-‘Askari, the girl’s future spouse, came to see her every night in a dream. He finally ordered her to flee her country and allow herself to be sold into slavery.3 Thus, the twelfth Imam’s lineage combined both royalty and prophecy. More important is the direct presence of Christianity in the popular concept and history of the Imams in Twelver Shi’ism.
According to Imamite authors, none of the previous Imams had been spied upon as had the eleventh. Al-Hasan al- ‘Askari attempted to hide the fact of the birth of his son from everyone but his closest friends.4
The caliph al-Mu’tamid and his entourage, as well as the majority of the partisans of the Imams, were even convinced that the eleventh Imam had passed away (in 260 AH/874 AD) without leaving any progeny.
a) Mahdi in Shi’ite traditions
The literature dealing with the Mahdi, his birth, concealment and return is vast and complex. Sachedina states, concerning this literature, that the primary sources in the study of the doctrinal evolution of the idea of the Mahdi in Imami Shi’ism5 can make an essential contribution to an understanding of the period in which the idea of the Hidden Mahdi became crystallized in Imamite dogma.6
M.A.A. Moezzi explains very clearly that the Imams passed on two kinds of traditions concerning the Mahdi: the first category contained confusing information, where the name of the Mahdi is not specified and was aimed at that large group of disciples who were involved in the writing down of traditions. In fact, the Imams prohibited the pronouncing of the latter’s name (al-nahy ‘an al-ism, al-man’ ‘an al-tasmiya).7
According to the authors, this prohibition was maintained in effect up to at least the beginning of the minor Occultation. A second kind of tradition, aimed only at the closest of disciples, contained specific information about the identity of the Mahdi.
His name was included here, except that, in order to guarantee the safety of his life, this category of traditions was only to be transmitted orally until after the beginning of the Occultation; it could be put into writing only after the life of the son of the eleventh Imam was out of danger.8
Among the first Shi’ite compilers of traditions concerning the number of Imams, the twelfth Imam, his two occultations, his final Return and Rise, let us cite: Shaykh al-Kulayni, who died in 329 AH/940 AD, the same year as the beginning of the major Occultation, and who compiled his Usul min al-Kafi during the period of the minor Occultation; al-Nu’mani Ibn Abi Zaynab (d.circa 345 or 360 AH/956 or 971 AD); Ja’far al- Qummi (d.369 AH/979 AD); Ali ibn Muhammad al-Khazzaz al-Razi al-Qummi (d. in the second half of the fourth AH/tenth AD century); Ibn Bâbuye (d. 381 AH/991 AD) who, especially in his Kamal(Ikmal) al-din, seems to have collected the essentials of all the information from his predecessors; Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn ‘Ayyash al-Jawhari (d.401 AH/1101 AD; Al-Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 413 AH/1022 AD), author of Kitab al- Irshad; id. Al-Fusul al-‘ashara fi al-ghayba; Al-Murtada ‘Alam al-Huda (d. 436 AH/1044 AD), a disciple of al-Mufid; Ali al-Karajaki (d. 449 AH/1057 AD), another of al-Mufid’s disciples; and finally Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan al-Tusi (d.460 AH/1067 AD). All these authors’ works preceded the minor Occultation.9
The Twelver Shi’ite doctrine on the Occultation, based on traditions attributed to the Imams, was authoritatively elaborated by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Nu’mani in his Kitab al-Ghayba, by Ibn Babuya in his Ikmal al-Din, and by Shaykh al-Tusi in his Kitab al-Ghayba. In Imami traditions, as in Sunni traditions, the Mahdi will rule the world, with Jesus praying behind him after his descent from heaven.
This did not raise a theological problem as it would in Sunnism, since the Mahdi, like all other Imams, according to prevalent Imami doctrine, exceeds all Prophets except Muhammad in religious rank.10
b) The Occultation
The Occultation (ghayba) is a period of concealment chosen by God for the Imam who will continue to live in this state as long as God deems it necessary. Then He will command him to reappear and take control of the world in order to restore justice and equity. The mysterious fate of the son of the eleventh Imam divided the early Shi’ite family into some eleven to fifteen different schisms.11
But the idea according to which the twelfth Imam was alive and hidden and would return at the End of Time, was later adopted by all Imamites due to the tenacious efforts of authors/compilers like al- Kulayni, al-Nu’mani and especially Ibn Babuye, who, through the great mass of traditions surrounding this belief, progressively managed to convince the population of the faithful.12
In fact, early Imamites attempted to present the Imamate and Mahdi-ism of the Twelfth Imam in occultation in a logical and rational way.13 According to Imamite sources, Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan al-‘Askari (al-Mahdi) had a first occultation when he was a child, in 260 AH/874 AD, at the time of his father’s death, and it lasted nearly 70 years.
At Samarra in Iraq, beside the shrines of the tenth and eleventh Imams, is a mosque under which there is a cave from where the Imam Mahdi is said to have disappeared14 when he was five years old. This cave was a place of retreat and meditation for the eleventh Imam and his son, and also a hiding place from the Abbasid agents.15 During this Occultation, the Imam communicated with his faithful via four successive Representatives (nâ’ib):
1. Abu ‘Amr ‘Uthman ibn Sa’id al-‘Umari (or al-‘Amri), representative from 260 AH/874 AD to 267 AH/880 AD.
2. Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn ‘Uthman al-‘Umari (or al-‘Amri), the son of the above, from 267 AH/880 AD until 305 AH/917 AD.
3. Abul-Qasim al-Husayn ibn Rawh al- Nawbakhti, from 305 AH/917 AD to 326 AH/937 AD.
4. Abul-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Simarri, from 326 AH/937 AD to 329AH/941 AD.
This was “the minor Occultation” (al-ghayba al-sughra).
Then, around 329 AH/941 AD, came the beginning of “the major Occultation” (al-ghayba al-kubra) after the fourth representative received a last autographed note from the hidden Imam: “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful; Ali ibn Muhammad al-Simarri, may God increase, through you, the reward of your brothers [in religion; that is the Shi’ites]; your death will take place in six days. Prepare yourself and name no one as your successor [as representative] after your death.
This is the advent of the second Occultation in which there will be no more manifestation, except if it be with divine permission, and that will only take place after a long time, when hearts will be hardened and the earth filled with violence.
Among my partisans, some will claim to have seen me with their eyes. Beware! He who claims to have seen [me] with his eyes before the raising of al-Sufyani and [the sounding of] the Cry is a liar and an impostor. Greatness and Power belong to God alone.”
Six days later al-Simarri, on his deathbed, was asked, “Who will be your successor?” He replied, “From this point on, the matter is in God’s hands, He will arrange it Himself.” Those were his last words.16
The major Occultation is still in effect, and will not end until the End of Time (akhir al-zaman) when the Mahdi comes back to re-establish Justice on earth. The Imam is not completely cut off from his followers but has spokesmen, in the form of learned jurists (marja’ taqlid), who can act on his behalf and guide the Shi’ites in their religious matters. Imamite traditions give four reasons for the Occultation.17
1. Safeguarding the life of the twelfth Imam.
2. Independence vis-á-vis temporal powers; through his Occultation, the Mahdi will owe allegiance to no temporal powers.
3. Putting the Imamites to the test; the Occultation serves as a long period of trial, a challenge to their faith.
4. Finally, there is a hidden reason for the Occultation, that is said to be the most important of all, although it will not be revealed until the Return of the Mahdi.
With the major Occultation, the secret life of the Twelfth Imam begins, whose occult presence has dominated the Shi’ite religious consciousness for more than ten centuries. The Twelver tradition illustrates this from as early as the fourth AH/tenth AD century, the hidden Imam living in his physical body, providentially endowed with a long life.
To support this claim, Ibn Babuye dedicates six chapters of his Kamal al-din to those known for their extraordinarily long lives in the Arabic tradition. It is also said in the Twelver tradition that the hidden Imam attends the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and that he sees people even if they cannot see him.18
He is visibly present and walks through their marketplaces and into their homes, and nobody recognizes him.19 In this latter case, he is compared to Joseph (Qur’an, sura 12, Yusuf), seen but not recognized by his brothers. As in Joseph’s case, God can allow him to be recognized by some people. The Prophet is said to have stated: “...His faithful are illuminated by his Light; they profit from his wilaya during his Occultation, just as one profits from the sun even when it is covered by clouds.”20
The history of the twelfth Imam during his major Occultation is constituted of stories and narratives recounted by those who saw the Mahdi in their dreams or in reality.21
The compilations of al-Kulayni, al-Nu’mani, and Ibn Babuye, to name the oldest and the best known, and numerous other Shi’ite works throughout the centuries, contain a number of eyewitness accounts from even ordinary people who were in great distress or other unfortunate circumstances and who claim having met the twelfth Imam. “None of these mysterious appearances to his faithful suspends his Occultation but each of these appearances suspends for his faithful the common laws of time and space for Men who do not perceive the occult presence of the Imam.”22
c) The concept of Intizar
Complementary to the doctrine of the greater Occultation is the notion of Intizar, or the expectation and awaiting of the Hidden Imam's return. Intizar is a state of expectancy for the reappearance of the Hidden Imam; it is a doctrine of hope and trust that he will one day reappear and establish an ideal Islamic society.
The expectation of release from suffering, grief and sorrow (Intizar al-faraj) is enjoined upon the believers. The doctrine of Intizar has important connotations for the personal and political lives of the Twelver Shi’ite faithful during the Occultation of the Imam: their personal duties as believers vis-â-vis God and their attitude to the question of religious leadership and earthly government.
The most comprehensive collection of the Twelver Shi’ite narratives on Intizar was made by the Shi’ite scholar Muhammad Baqir Majlisi in his encyclopaedic work on Shi’ite traditions, Bihar al-Anwar.23 The disappearance of the Mahdi and his Occultation are presented in the traditions as a severe test for the Shi’ite faithful, bringing with it much hardship and many schisms.
The Shi’ites will undergo a process of sifting in which the unbelievers will be rooted out from the believers. Several traditions mention the merit of Intizar al-faraj without specifying the nature and cause of suffering. In one tradition, the Prophet is reported to have said: “The best of all acts carried out by my people is their expectation of release from suffering, granted to them by God.”24
Several of the eighty or so traditions on the excellency of Intizar, class it as the most noble (afdal) of all actions, and in one narrative as synonymous with worship (‘Ibada).25 Acts of worship must be carried out clandestinely during the ghayba, are more meritorious than those performed openly after the return of the Imam. One must strive to carry out all of the obligatory duties laid down in the Shari’a, which remain incumbent on the individual despite the absence of the Imam.
The Twelver Shi’ites during the occultation are superior to those in the company of the Mahdi, for the simple reason that the former must contend with tyrannical regimes, against which they move neither tongue nor hand nor sword in opposition.26
The expectation of salvation through the rise of the twelfth Imam is dominant throughout the Occultation. The persistent faith in freedom from grief through his appearance requires the Shi’ites to be on the alert at all times and also to pave the way for the Imam’s reappearance.
Murtaza Mutahhari, a prominent student of Imam Khomeiny and a teacher of philosophy, in his essay on the uprising and the revolution of the Mahdi, no longer treated the advent of the Lord of the Age as a sudden, impromptu event, but as the final stage in an ideologically driven revolution to establish Islam’s “ideal society”.
Mutahhari conceived the coming of the Mahdi as the climax of a revolutionary struggle that in its primary stages requires the believers’ active involvement27 during the Occultation.
Unlike the Marxist theory of revolution, Mutahhari believed that Mahdi’s revolution is divinely inspired and remains contingent upon the alertness and action of the community. Thus, the establishment of a just state became for Mutahhari and like-minded activists a legitimate first step toward the final revolution of the Mahdi.
The well-known work Wilayat-e faqih (authority of the jurist) was clearly meant to provide an answer to the most urgent of these concerns. In this work, Imam Khomeiny advocated the necessity for instituting an Islamic government in the absence of the Hidden Imam in order to prepare the terrain for the Rise of the Mahdi.
He argued that while the Imam is in Occultation, preserving the essence of Islam and defending its sacred values should be accomplished by an Islamic government under a Guardian Jurist to be upheld as the Imam's vicegerent. In support of this doctrine, Imam Khomeiny cites one of the Hidden Imam’s decrees in which the ‘ulama were upheld as “proofs” (hujaj) of the Lord of the Age.
Ali Shari’ati (1933-1977), a major ideologue of revolutionary Shi’ism, in a pamphlet entitled “expectation, a school of protest”, regarded the End of Time as nothing but an “ultimate revolution” for humanity. The Mahdi’s revolution could not come about without Muslims arriving at a new understanding of expectation as a way of acquiring social responsibility, working toward a just and equitable order and rejecting political oppression and cultural degradation.
Complying with the Shi’ite prophecies, he repeated that the Lord of the Age will come when the entire lifespan of humanity reaches its lowest ebb of corruption, but until that time, he recommended that the community of believers should settle on the leadership of a democratically elected jurist (faqih) to serve as the Hidden Imam's general deputy (na’ibe ‘aam).
A true understanding of the End, he stated, will evolve only when Muslims abandon troubling theological entanglements concerning circumstances of the resurrection (and in effect, the Occultation) and instead, develop a perspective conforming to modern social and human sciences, and based on a sociological analysis of class conflict. Shari’ati’s ideological dimensions of expectation go so far as to endorse a Marxist-inspired Islamic revolution.
True expectation, according to Shari’ati, is “believing that in the life of humankind on this very earth and before death, not in the resurrection after death, history will bring about the triumph of the oppressed and destruction of the oppressors”.
d) The Return and the Rise
The future Return and Rise of the Mahdi constitutes the most frequent of the Imam’s predictions and has been described in numerous traditions from the early times in Imamite history. It is believed that the Mahdi will come to fulfill the mission of all the prophets before him, and complete the task of Imam Husayn (the third Imam), the great martyr of Karbala.
He shall appear, according to many traditions, on the day of ‘Ashura, the day on which Imam Husayn, son of Imam Ali, was killed,28 showing himself first in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, where he will be joined initially by 313 believers, the number of the martyrs of Badr, then he will make his headquarters in Kufah where Imam Ali was killed and buried.
The Return as well as the Rising of the Qa’im, will be preceded by signs. The theme of ‘Signs of the Return’ is one of the most developed of those that occur in collections of hadith, in both Sunnite and Shi’ite literature. Sometimes a number of chapters are dedicated to the subject.29 The universal sign of the Return consists in the generalized invasion of the earth by Evil. There are also a great number of more specific signs listed in the compilations.
Notes:
1. Shari’ati, Expectation: a School of Protest, p. 15
2. H. Nasr, Ideals and realities of Islam, p.149
3. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-din , Bab 41 Ma ruwi’ah al-Narjis umm al- Qa’im, vol.2, p.418-423. Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, Kitab al-Ghayba, Bab wiladatihi wa ahwal al-ummihi, num. 12, vol. 51, pp.6-7-8
4. Ibn Babuye , Kamal al-din , vol 1, pp.474
5. Imami (or imamate); the Shia who believe in twelve imams
6. Sachedina, “A treatise on the Occultation...” , p.110
7. al-Kulayni , Usul, “kitab al-hujja”, b‚b fi al-nahy ëan al-ism , hadith 1 and 3, vol.1, p.332-333
8. M.A.A. Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shi’ism, p.106
9. M.A.A. Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shi’ism, p.101
10. “Al-Mahdi”, EI2, p. 1236
11. Cf. A.A. Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, pp. 42-55, see also an- Nawbakhti, les sectes shiites (Kitab Firaq al-shi’a), pp.109
12. M.A.A.Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shi’ism, p.105
13. Sachedina, “A treatise on the Occultation...” , p.111
14. M. Momen, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, P.161
15. H. Corbin, En Islam Iranien, vol.4, p. 322
16. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-din, vol. 2, ch. 45, p.516, num.44
17. Al-Kulayni, Usul, Kitab al-Hujja, bab nadir fi hal al-ghayba, vol. 1 pp. 333-335, bab fi l-ghayba, vol. 2 pp. 132- 45. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-din, vol. 2 , ch. 44 , PP .479 - 82, num 1, 2, 6, 8
18. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-din, Bab Dhikr man shahada al-Qa’im wa raâhu 43, vol.2, pp.351, num.8
19. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-din , vol. 2, ch.33, p.341, num.21. also, al- Kulayni, Usul, Kitab al-Hujja, bab Nahi ëan al- Ism, vol.1, num 1 & 3 , p. 332-333 ; Al-Nu’mani, Kitab al-ghayba, p.257
20. Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-dÓn, vol.2, ch.43, p.253, num.3
21. H. Corbin, En Islam Iranien, vol.4, p. 304
22. H. Corbin, En Islam Iranien, vol.4, p.306
23. Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, Vol. 52, Bab Fazl al-Intizar va madh al-Shi’a fi zaman al-ghayba, pp. 122-127
24. Bihar vol.52, P. 122
25. Ibid
26. Ibid
27. Mutahhari, p.5-10
28. Mufid, p.341
29. Al-Nu’mani , Kitab al-ghayba, ch. 14, 15, 18, 21; Ibn Babuye, Kamal al-Din, ch. 47, 57, 58.
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