How the preparation of the Promised Savior will be achieved?

By:
Martyr Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Baquir Sadr
How will the preparation of the expected leader be achieved while He (A.S.) didn't live with his father Al- Imam Al- Askari (A.S.) unless five years approximately? Which is the childhood period, and that is not enough to the leader's personality maturation, so what are the situations through which He was perfected?
The response:
Al- Mahdi (A.S.) followed his father in the Muslims leadership. And that means He truly as an Imam had the whole spiritual and intellectual content of the Imamat {leadership} since the very early time of his Holy life.
A group of his previous fathers (A.S.) preceded him to the leadership {Imamat} so Imam Muhammad the son of Al- Jawaad (A.S.) got the leadership on while He was eight years old.
Al-Imam Ali the son of Muhammad Al- Haadi who got on the leadership while He was nine years old, and al- Imam Abu muhammad Al Hassan Al- Askari (A.S.) the father of the expected leader who got on the leadership while He was twenty-two years old.
It is observed that the early leadership phenomenon it is up-to it's utmost through Imam Al- Mahdi and Al- Imam Al- Jawaad's (A.S.) personality.
We called it as a phenomenon since it originates a scientifical palpable denotation regarding to Imam Al- Mahdi's fathers (A.S.) which Muslims had lived before and that they were aware of it inspite their experiences related to the Imam (A.S.) in a way or other, and it is impossible for us to demand with the establishment of one phenomenon from the occurrences which is more intelligible) and forceful than the nations experience, for that we explain this meaning through the following points:
A- The Imamat in Ahlul-Bait (A.S.), wasn't a way center that the king inherits the power from his father, And He will be supported by the role of his government, like the ruling regime supported it as the Fatimian's caliph leadership {Imamat}, and the succession of Abbasian caliphs, but it was assuming the loyalty of it's vast popular principals by the means of the spiritual disturbing, and the intellectual satisfaction of this principals by worthiness of this Imamat {leadership} to guide Islam, and to lead it according to intellectual and spiritual principalities.
B - These popularity groups are truly stated since the beginning of Islam, and they grew up, and extended through the two Imams al- Baqir and As- Sadiq's (A.S.) epoch, and the school that was been taken care by these two Imams have innermost of these groups that became in forming a vast intellectual tendency within the Islamic world, and that included hundreds of jurist scholars and commentators and the knowers from a different kind of Islamic and humanitarian knowledge, which were known at that time, even Al- Hassan the son of Ali Al- Wash- Shae said: when I have entered Al- Kufeh mosque I saw nine hundred sheikhs, all of them were saying. Ja'afar the son of Muhammad told us.
C - The conditions that this school, and like it the popular groups in the Islamic group that you believed in it, that you practice it lows, to appoint the Imam and to know his fitting for the leadership {Imamat}, according to them, they are difficult conditions; since they believe that the Imam couldn't be appointed as
an Imam unless He could be the must knowledgeable of his era.
D- The school and it popular groups were presenting the great sacrifices in the way of the resistance on it's belief with the leadership, since it was informing a hostile error in the view of the temporary caliphate, and at least from the intellectual aspect even the matter which resulted that regime taking up on torturing and Killing campaign continually approximately, several people were killed and imprisoned, and the hundreds loosed their lives in the darkness of prisons, which means that the belief in the leadership {Imameh} of Ahlul-Bait (A.S.) cost them expensively, and there is nothing of the temptation for the person unless what believer feels
with the believing or that He supposed the rapprochement to Allah (S.W.) and the rank at God (S.W.).
E- The Imams whom the groups submitted to them by the allegiance and leadership weren't isolated from them, nor they confined in elevated towers as the roles have usually done with their nations, and they were not vanished from them unless that the sultan carry them away by the prison or punishment, and we know through the great number of the narrators and the inspired relators about every one of the eleven Imams, and through what is narrated from the writings, which were occurred between the Imam and his coetaneous people, and through what Imam was doing as journeys from aside, and through the agents of his own in the different fields of the Islamic world from other side, and through what the followers {shi'ites} have gotten habit of the inspection and visits of their Imams in Madinah Munawwarah, when they go to the Holy house from every where to do the pilgrimage in junction.
All that obliged a continual communication between the Imam and his extended groups through the Islamic regions in a distinct measure with the various classes from the scholars, and others than them.
F- The contemporary caliphate for the Imams (A.S.) was looking at them and their spiritual leadership and Imamat as a great danger source for their being, and worthies, then according to this principality, it made all the efforts, and tries in the way of destroying this leadership, and been patience in the several negativism's in case of it.
And sometimes it seemed with autocracy and strictness aspects, when the ensuring of it's situations compelled it for that, so the detention and pursuit campaigns for the Imams themselves were continued, although that truly results from the sense of the felling or the disgust at muslims, and all the people who are the supporters from different classes.
If we took these six points into the consideration, while they are historical facts indubitably, we could get with a result that is:
The early leadership {Imameh} phenomenon truly was a practical phenomenon, and wasn't a fiction of the illusions; since the Imam who appeared on the theatre while He was a little boy, He declared himself as a spiritual and intellectual leader {Imam} for Muslims, and all that tendency admitted with the friendship and leadership to him. It is definitely that He must be on a perfect clear once and noticeable but great quality from the knowledge of science, and the vast thought, capacity and the mastery from the interpretation, doctrines, and jurisprudence, because if He (A.S.) wasn't so, the groups couldn't declare their belief with his leadership {Imameh}.
In addition to what is mentioned in the previous time, that Imams in positions which allowed to their groups to interact with them and because of the different limelight to be thrown up on their life and their personalities and characteristics.
Do you ever see the boy who will nominate himself for the leadership of his own, and will make himself as a chief for Islam while He is at the sight and hearing of, the people from his public groups.
Then they will believe in him, and they will try to give value from their safety, and life, in the way of that aim, and do not bother themselves to discover his actual situation, and that phenomenon of this early leadership {Imameh} does not shake them in order to research the fact of this position and to evaluate this young Imam?
Then suppose that people didn't move to scout the position, so is it possible for the days and months but years to pass on this matter without the exposure of the fact inspite of the continually natural reaction between the young boy Imam and the whole people?
Is it honestly and from the wise that He has been actually a juvenile in his mind and his science, and that will not be exposed through this long communication?
And if we assumed that it was impossible for the popular groups of Ahlul- Bait's leadership to discover the reality of the matter, so why the present caliphate kept silent and didn't try to declare the fact if it was agreed with its benefit?
And however it was easy for the existed authority, if that young Imam was a child in his thought, and culture as it is usually, in the children, and it results for not meriting the Imamat, and spiritual leadership, and thought. If it's difficult to satisfy that someone at the age of forty or fifty can not merit the leadership, that doesn't mean there is a difficult satisfaction for the child to not merit it, however intelligent and meriting the Imamat, with it's meaning which was known by Imamia Shiites.
And this was easier and simplest than the compound ways, and the curbing with the temerity techniques that the regime followed at that time.
The single interpretation of that temporary caliphate abstaining from the play by this paper was the perceiving of it, that the early leadership {Imameh} was an actually phenomenon and not artificial thing.
And truly it really perceived that, after it tried to play with that paper, but it couldn't, and the history told us about attempts from this type, and the flop of them, while the history didn't tell us yet about a position in which the early leadership phenomenon tottered or the young Imam faced an embarrassment which overcome on his ability or shake the belief of the people by him.
And this is the meaning that we have mentioned about the early leadership phenomenon, which is actual phenomenon through the life of Ahlul-Bait (A.S.), and it wasn't save a supposition, also this actual phenomenon truly has it's roots and it's similar cases in the tradition of the heaven, which extended through the missions and leaderships.
There is an example for the early leadership phenomenon in the tradition of the heaven about, Ahlul- Bait (A.S.) that is Yahya, that Allah (S.W.) said {O, Yahya: take hold of the Book with strength, and granted him wisdom while yet a child: Mariam, verse: 12.
And when it is proved that the early leadership is a really phenomenon, and it is actually existed in the Ahlul- Bait's (A.S.) life, So there is no objection regarding to the leadership of Al- Mahdi (A.S.) and appointing him (A.S.) after his father, while He was a child.

How can we believe that Al-Mahdi is already existing?
Now we come over the fourth question and that is:
Suppose that the hypothesis of the expected leader is possible with the whole what is included from the long age, early leadership and silent absence, so the possibility is actually not enough for the conviction of him (A.S.).
How can we actually believe in the existence of Al Mahdi?
Is it enough that some of the narratives which are narrated from the prophet (S.), which are found into the books for the entire conviction by the twelfth Imam, inspite of what is there of the strangeness and out from the inhabited in this supposition?
But how can we improve that there is actually a historical existence for Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) and it was not only a supposition, that the spiritual circumstance is available to stabilize him in the minds of great number from the people ?
The response: Al-Mahdi's opinion truly as the expected leader to change the world into the best, is already came in the general traditions of the Holy prophet, and in the narratives of Ahlul- Bait's (A.S.) in particularly, and which are maintained in several texts to the extend that is impossible to be doubted, and (400) four hundred traditions from the prophet (s.) are already counted from our brothers Ahlul- sunnah's way, and also the narratives total which have come about Imam Al-Mahdi from Shiites and Sunnis ways, were more than six thousand narratives, and this is a great statistical number. It's parallel, couldn't be found in the several of a priori Islamic matters, in which Muslims usually doesn't have adopted.
And as for this idea embodiment in the twelfth Imam (A.S.) there are enough and clear justifications are found for the contentment with him.
It is possible to sum these justifications up in two evidences:
The first is Islamic one.
And the other is scientifically. By the Islamic evidence we prove the existence of the expected leader.
And by the scientific evidence we prove only that Al- Mahdi is not truly as a myth and only supposition, but as a truth, it's existence is proved by the historical experience.
But for the Islamic evidence:
That is embodied through the hundreds of the stated narratives which came from the prophet (s.), and the Imams from Ahlul- Bait (A.S.), and which deals with the appointment of Imam Al Mahdi (A.S.), and He is truly from Ahlul- Bait (A.S.)
From Fatima's sons,
And from Al-Hussein's progeny, And He is truly the ninth one from Al- Hussein's sons.
And truly the Caliphs are twelve.
These narratives distinct that general opinion and show it in the 12th Imam from Ahlul Bait (A.S.).
These narratives reached a great number of the multitude and circulation through the Imams (A.S.) precaution and reservation in presenting that on the public level, in order to protect Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) from the assassination or the quick dispatch.
And is not the multitude number of the narratives, that are the only base to accept them, but there is an addition to that, which also attributes for an evidences that prove it's reality, so the holy Prophetic tradition about the Imams, or the caliphs or the commanders after him, that they are twelve imams or caliphs or commanders, according to what the authors have already enumerated the narratives in different ways,
and the narratives had been counted, which reached more than two hundred and seventy narratives, which had been gotten from the famous of the tradition books of Shiites and Sunnah, including Al-Bukhari, Muslim , Al- Turmuthi Abi Dawood, Musnad Ahmed, And Mustadrak Al- Hakim Ala- Sahihain.
And it can be observed here that Al-Bukhari who narrated this tradition, was a coeval to Imam Al-Jawaad and the two Imams Al-Haadi and Al-Askari, and in that great significance; since it proves that the tradition is already recorded from the prophet (S.), before it's meaning took place, and before the opinion of the twelve Imams should be completed, and that means there is no doubt that the narration of the tradition was effected by the situations of the ithna ashari Imamian, and as an influence of it; since the false traditions that attributed to the prophet (S.), while they were influenced or justified of a late situation through a time that can antecede that situation for which they informed a reflection to it in it's declaration, and recording, and while we already had the material evidence, that the mentioned tradition proceeded the historical sequence of the twelve Imams, and it is checked up in the books of the traditions before the completion of the Ithna Ashari Imamian reality, it is impossible for us to be sure that the tradition was not as a reflection of a special situation, but it was interpretation about a divine fact, that is pronounced with who doesn't speak out from desire, so He said {truly the caliphs after me are twelve}, and the Ithna Ashari Imami have came, while it began from Imam Ali and finally ended with Al- Mahdi to be the single and reasonable application for that Holy prophetic tradition.
As for the scientific evidence:
It is truly a result from an experience that the nation from the people had lived through a period which extended to 70 years approximately, which was the period of the short absence, and in order to explain that, we introduce for that by giving a brief idea about the short absence.
The short absence truly expresses about the first period of the leadership of the expected leader (A.S.). It is already predetermined for this Imam since He (A.S.) got the leadership {Imameh} to hide him self from the universal eyes, and to remain with his name far from the events, although He was near to them with his heart and mind, and it is observed that this absence can cause a great impact for the public groups of the leadership {Imameh} in the Islamic nation if it was happened suddenly, because these groups were used to meet the Imam in every era and to communicate with him (A.S.), and return to him to solve the various difficulties, so if the Imam (A.S.) become suddenly invisible to his followers and they felt with severance from the intellectual and spiritual leadership of them, and this sudden absence causes the feeling with the astronomical determination vacancy, it must destroy the whole entity and to disciple it's union, so it is been obligatory facilitate for this absence; and for the groups to be familiar with this situation gradually, and to adopt themselves step by step according to this situation, and this preparation was the short absence through which Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) become invisible to the universal theatre, but He (A.S.) was in continual and connection with his groups and followers by the way of his trustee vices, and the expert of his followers who were informing the connection's point between him and the believers of his Imamian's way.
The charge of the behalf of Imam is occupied by four people, whom the groups agreed with their piety caution, and they honesty that they lived in, and those mentioned are the following:
1- Al- Umar Osman the son of Saeed.
2- Al- Umar Muhammad the son of Osman the son of Saeed.
3- Al- Hussein the son of Rouh Abul- Qassim.
4- Ali the son of Mohammad As- samari {Abul Hassan}.
These four individuals have already practiced their charges of this deputy-ship according to the mentioned arrangement and when one of them died, the other vice took his place, who must follow him according to appointment by Imam Al-Mahdi (A.S.).
The vice was connecting with the followers and carrying their inquiries to the Imam and submitting their difficulties to him (A.S.) and then He was carrying his responses sometimes orally or always written by the papers for them.
People already faced the solace and the sadness by these communications and indirect connections while they lost their Imam.
And they observed that all the signatures and communications were coming from Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) by the same hand writing and style during all the representation period of the four vices which lasted about seventy years.
As- Samri was the last vice who already declared the final of the short absence, and who was distinguished with the pointed vices, and the starting of the long great absence, through which there is no
appointed vice for the relationship between the Imam the leader and his followers.
It's been understood that the change from the short absence into the long and great absence in conforming the short absence for it goals and it's benefit; since it encouraged in this slowly action to the followers {shiites} against the shock and the sense with the great vacuum, because of the absence of Imam by this gradual process, and managed to confirm the shiits situation according to the absence, and prepare them gradually to accept the general agency idea about the Imam, by that, the agency is changed from the Imam, into the appointed individuals and then from the appointed individuals into the universal line.
It is the path of the religious jurist who is just and acquainted with the world and religion matters unconformity with the change of the short absence into the long {great} absence.
And now you can estimate the position according to what had been already mentioned, to perceive clearly that Al- Mahdi is a fact that a nation from the people were lived, and believed with it, and the envies with the vices expressed it along seventy years through their communication with the others, then there is no one noticed a play in sayings, or a swindle in the behavior, or contradiction in the narrative on anyone of them through the whole of the period.
Swore by God, can you imagine, that is it possible for a fib to continue for seventy years, and four people will practice it accordingly, and all of them on the way of the sequence met up on it, and they continue to work according to it as if it is a case, which they lived in by themselves, and saw it with their eyes without getting anything that causes doubting at them, and there is no a special and a distinguished relationship among these four individuals, that present a kind of a connivance to them, and they will gain the confidence of the whole communities through what their behavior is distinguished with of the reality, and their belief with the reality of the affair in which they claim that they are truly feeling it and living with it?!
It is said in a previous time. {The train of the lying is short}.
The life logic also prove that it is impossible practically an account of the expectations, that a lying stays in this manner and all this time through all these relations and communications and it gains the trustee of the whole surrounding it.
By this way we can know the phenomenon of the short absence is possible to be considered as a scientific experience, to prove it's objective truth, and to accept the Imam with his birth's life absence, and his general declaration about his long {great} absence that on the basis of it, He concealed himself from the eyes and did not show himself up to anyone.

Thus why does not the leader emerge all along these ages?
If He is ready for the social action, so what is the thing that prevent him from the emergence on the theatre of the life through the means of the short absence or after it, instead of changing it into a great absence, when the social action circumstances of the change was more simple and easier at that time, and his actual relationship with the people through the arrangements of the short absence period was to let him collect his raws and to start his activity with a powerful beginning, while the ruling powers around him couldn't reached the utmost level of The power and ability as the humanity reached at last through the scientific and industrial progression?
The response is: The success of every social change activity relates with the objective conditions and it's circumstances, and it is impossible for it to achieve it's goal unless by the conditions and circumstances is fullfiled.
The social change activities whom the heaven out bursts them on the earth are distinguished with the unrelated to the objective circumstances in it's missionary aspect, since the message which the change activity depend on here is divine, and it is from the heaven's made, it is not from the objective circumstances made, but it depends on the objective circumstances in it's executive aspect, it and it's success with it's scheduling are related and it's specific time, with these situations that the heaven waited for five centuries of the pre- Islamic paganism, until the last messages of it which is descended to the hand of the prophet Muhammad (S.), since the relationship with the objective circumstances for the execution was dictating it's delay through the world's need for it since long time ago.
And the objective circumstances which have an effect in the executive aspect of the change activity, among it, what formed the suitable climate, and the general weather for the objective change's, and from them that informed some of the particulars, which the movement of the change requires through it's detailed turning points.
As for the moving activity which for instance lining successfully led in U.S.S.R., was connected with a factory as a matter of breaking out the world war (I), and the Czarism decay, and this which shares in creating the suitable climate for the change activity, and that was connecting with other limited, and partial factors, for instance lining safety in his journey through which he sneaked into USSR, and then he led the revolution. So if accidentally something hinder him on the way, it would be a reason for the revolution to get away that is the cause for him to appear on the theater.
And the Allah's (S.W.) commandment that you never find any change in the changes Devin, on a comfort in the part of changes in some specific time which periods doesn't go with it, and public weather to save change aspect, from here we realize that Islam came on the last moment at the end of the messengers, many difficulties happened in some ages.
Inspite of Allah's (S.W.) authority for defeating the whole difficulties and the impediments in the way of the heavens mission, and to create the suitable climate for that by the marvel, He (S.W.) didn't desire to use this style; since the test and the suffering with the tribulation through which the human integrate prescribed on the heaven change activity to be naturally and objectivity from this aspect, and this sometime doesn't forbid the interference of Allah's (S.W.) regarding to some cases, which can not create the suitable climate {situation}, but sometimes the movement through that suitable climate perhaps requires it, and for that the assists and the divine providence that Allah (S.W.) provides to his Holy men within critical minutes.
He (S.W.) protected the mission, For example Namrud's fire suddenly becomes comfort and peace to Ibrahim, and the hand of perfidious Jewish, which is raised with the sword over the Holy head of the prophet (S.) suddenly became paralyzed, and lost it ability to move, and suddenly a great storm that over spread the atheists and polytheists, camps who encircled by Madinah at the day of Khandaq and stirred the terror in their minds and hearts.
But all that did not pass the situation and the offering of the assist through the decisive minutes after the climate was suitable and the corresponding situations for the change in general perhaps was informed in natural shape.
So according to the objective situations, we study the position of Al- Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) to demonstrate the change activity for which He (A.S.) is prepared for, the executive aspect is truly as any other social change activity with the objective circumstances that contribute in ensuring the suitable climate for it.
So it was naturally to be placed according to that.
It is known that Al- Mahdi (A.S.) hasn't already prepare himself for a limited social act, nor for a change activity that restricted for this or that part of the world, since his mission for which He was kept by God (s.w), is a public change, which brings people, the whole people out from the darkness of the tyranny to the glow of the justice.
And the practicing of this great change activity is not enough by only reaching the mission and the righteous leader, other than, the conditions could be completed through the epoch of the prophecy it's self, but it requires a suitable universally climate and a helpful general situation, that ensures the required objective circumstances for the universal change activity.
And from the human's aspect, the civilized feeling of a human by the exhaustion considered it as a principal factory in creating that suitable climate to agree with the new justice mission, and this feeling by the exhaustion is formalized and established through the various civilization experiences, from which the human of the civilization gets out, while He is oppressed with negatives of what He has built, He is Perceiving his needs for the assistance, and paying attention by his nature to the invisible or to the transcendental.
From the material aspect, it is possible for the conditions of the modern material life to be more available than the old life conditions in a period as the period of the short absence to publish the mission through the whole world, and there by what will be achieved of approaching the distances, and the great ability for the communication among the people of the earth and to ensure the tools and means, that a central system needs to practice the enlighten for the people of the world and their culture on the base of the new mission.
As for what is mentioned through the inquiry of the military tools growing that whom the leader will face through the promised day, whatever his emergence was delayed, so this is reality, but what is the growth of the material shape of the power benefit with the spiritual defeat from the inside, and the spiritual structure collapse of the human who owns the whole of these powers and tools? And how many times a high civilized structure collapsed in the history in the first gas touch; since it was collapsed before that, and lost the trust of his existence and the satisfaction of his being and the confidence of his reality.

Is it for only one person all this responsibility?
Now we come on another question from the chain of the previous questions and that question is:
Is it possible for a single person however He had great ability to complete this great role? And, Is the great individual unless that human whom the situations nominated to be a chief for the nation in order to fulfill it's movement?
And the opinion within this question is related with a limited point of view of the history, which interprets it according to the consideration of the human as a minor factor in it.
And the objective powers surrounding him are the principal factors, and through the limitation of that, the individual wouldn't be in the best situations unless the intellectual interpretation about the path of this principal factor.
We have already explained in other points in our published books, that the history contains two pivots:
The first of them is the human, and the second is the material powers that surrounding him. So as the material powers, the production of the situations and the effect of the nature in the human, so the human also effects in what is surrounding him, from the powers and circumstances, and it is unjustifiable to suppose that the movement starts from the material, so it ends at the human unless by the size which is found the justification to suppose the opposite, so the human and the material are communicating by the passing of the time, and within this limitation, so the human and the material are serving each other, so in this case, it is possible to the individual to be More great than the parrot in the tendency of the history, and in special when we put in account the relationship factor between this individual and the heaven.
This relationship truly entered at that time as a leading power, which leads the movement of the history. And that which is achieved through the prophecy history, and especially through the history of the seal prophecy, the prophet Muhammad (S.) is truly by the role of his missionary relationship with the heaven, He (S.) himself received the order of the historical movement, and established a civilization flowage, that it was impossible for the objective surroundings, which were encircled with him to yield him in any case, and as we have explained that through the second preface of Al- Fatawa Al- Wadiha- book.
And what was possible to be occurred by the hand of the Holy-prophet (S.), Is also possible to be occurred by the hand of the expected leader from Ahlul-Bait whom He (S.) promised by him (A.S.), and whom the prophet (S.) mentioned about his great role.

How will be the manner of the change on the Promised Day?
Finally we come on the last question from the questions that we have presented in the past pages.
This question is about the manner through which we can imagine what will be occurred by the hand of that individual from a decive victory for the justice and eradication on the injustice regimes that faced him, then the distinctive answer on this question is related with the information about the time, and the period through which is predetermined for Al- Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) to appear on the theatre, and the possibility of the assumption of what that period will be distinguished with the particularities and circumstances in order to put the plane according that, and the change activity will perhaps follow, and the path that the change activity already will move through it, so while we unaware with the period, and do not know anything about it's circumstances and situations, It is impossible for us scientifically to accept what will be happened through the promised day, even if the positions and imaginations were possible, that always depend on the intellectual principle, not on the relay and corporal basics.
And there is a single principle supposition, which is possible to be accepted according to the traditions that told about him (A.S.), and the observable experiences from the great change activities through the history, which a supposition of the appearance of Al- Imam Al- Mahdi (A.S.) after a great vacancy, that resulted from suffocating cultural crisis, and that vacancy enabled the new mission to be spread through the world, and this deterioration facilities the mental climate to accept it, and this deterioration is
not only a single event that accidentally occurred in the history of the human civilization. but it is a natural result of the opposition of the history, which is deprived from God (S.W.), and which finally can't find a decisive solution, so the fire will enflame that leaves naught nor does it spare naught.
Through these means the light appears to smother the fire, and to settle the justice of the heaven on the earth.
So the praise to God, who is the lord of the creature's peace and blessing, be upon the honest Muhammad and his progeny (A.S.).