Can someone please correct me if I am understanding the following incorrectly:
Muslims believe there are two different kinds of mahdis: The Mahdi who will be a world-changing apocalyptic figure, and also mahdis (“lowercase” mahdis) who are merely great leaders who appear every few generations or so, but aren’t as special as The Mahdi:
The Mahdi, or a mahdi, is not a god or a deity, but just a human.
Also, is there any vetting process to determine whether someone really is a mahdi or not, other than that he has to be of the family lineage of Mohammed?
My understanding (as a non-Muslim) is that the Mahdi will be a mortal human being. My understanding of Islam is that everyone, including Muhammad, is just a mortal human being. There’s only one God and he doesn’t manifest as a human being.
I believe the general belief on historical Mahdis is that they were wrong. The real Mahdi hasn’t appeared yet and anybody who’s claimed to be a Mahdi (or whose followers claimed Mahdi status for them) is therefore wrong. Part of the role of the Mahdi is he will conquer the world and make Islam a universal religion and then, after he’s accomplished this, the world will end. All historical Mahdi have obviously failed to do this and therefore their claims are disproven.
Twelver Shi’ites believe that the Mahdi is the last of twelve (duh) Imams, that he is a historical person born in 869 AD as the son of the eleventh Imam, that he never died but instead “went into Occultation,” and that he will return.
They believe he is a man, not a God or a deity (there’s only one of those in Islam, natch).
“The general belief,” eh? Perhaps among the Sunnis - I don’t know much about them - but certainly not among Twelver Shi’ites.
As mentioned, they specifically believe that the Mahdi was a given historical person, who rather than die went into a period of “occultation” which continues to the present day.*
Cite? Specifically on the “he will conquer the world and make Islam a universal religion” part; I am aware that he is expected to return shortly before the world’s end.
*) Well, strictly speaking, they believe he went into two periods of occultation, the second of which continues to the present day.
So, suppose that an Islamic terrorist, or president, or dictator, or other prominent figure today calls himself a mahdi or The Mahdi. Would it just be dismissed by 99% of Muslims?
Or, also - is being a mahdi a title you can’t claim yourself, it’s a title that has to be conferred upon you by others, maybe a shura? Who officially decides?
In 1881, a Sudanese national named Muhammad Ahmad declared himself the Mahdi. His claim was widely ridiculed even within the Sudan itself - prima facie, he lacked the necessary credentials - and presumably ignored elsewhere (i.e. by more than 99% of the world’s Muslims). He did manage to gather enough followers to stage a rebellion against the Brits, though, famously killing “Gordon of Khartoum” in the process.
Then there’s India’s Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who differs from Muhammad Ahmad in that, interestingly, he still has an active following - the Ahmadiyya - even today, more than a century after his death. This group probably numbers around 10 million or so, so it’s fair to say that this specific Mahdi’s claim, too, was “dismissed by 99% of Muslims.” In Pakistan, at least, they suffer repression at the hand of other, “real” Muslims - i.e., they are not allowed to call themselves Muslims, not allowed to utter the shahada, not allowed to call their places of worship “mosques,” etc.
The list goes on. See also: The Grand Mosque seizure back in 1979, as well as, uh, this guy.
Good question. A tentative answer - I am not an expert - is that different traditions claim different things about how the Mahdi is to be chosen, identified or recognised.
In the case of the aforementioned Sudanese Mahdi, who worked within a given Sufi tradition, he claimed to have had the title conferred to him by a hadra, i.e. a gathering of all prophets from Adam to Muhammed.
In the case of the Indian Mahdi, I believe - though this could very well be wrong, and I’d love to be corrected - that he claimed to have heard a divine voice tell him directly, “you are the Mahdi,” either during prayer or during a period of seclusion of some kind.
Steken, thanks for the primer. A few questions: what does ‘occultation’ exactly mean, and what sort of state is it? Is the Mahdi believed to be currently in heaven, in some sort of noncorporeal state, or what?
Also, how will the Mahdi be recognized when he arrives?
During his first occultation, Twelver Shi’ites believe that the Mahdi communicated to the world and his followers through deputies.
When the last of these deputies died, a second period of occultation began, during which the Mahdi is well and truly hidden. This is the period which continues to our day.
As far as I can tell - and I do stress that I could be wrong here - the general idea within Twelver Shi’ism seems, at least to me, to be that the Mahdi is not in heaven, or in any kind of non-corporeal state. He lives, as men do, in a physical body here on Earth.
Travelling through Iran, I once came across an (English-language) pamphlet which - very unconvincingly, in my opinion! - argued that “modern science” has shown that humans are indeed capable of living for thousands of years under, uh, some specific circumstances. Bogus science aside, the point here is that at least the author of this pamphlet held the view that there was no reason to believe that the Mahdi was anything but a man, living in our midst, albeit alive since his birth in 869 AD.
Considering the depth and complexity of Shi’ite thought, however, I’d be shocked if alternative hypotheses haven’t been put forth by different theologians, mystics, etc. throughout the years: Perhaps the Mahdi, although physically present, can not be perceived with the eyes of mortals/sinners; perhaps he actually dwells on some sort of astral plane between heaven and earth, etc., etc.
Quite honestly, I can’t remember too many details on this, but I know there are a great number of requirements. Some have to do with disastrous events preceding his return shortly before the end of the world, others with the heroic acts and even the physical attributes of the man himself. IIRC, his name is Muhammed. He’s an Arab, and will possibly rise out of Syria. He is beautiful, with a youthful appearance (despite being hundreds of years old). But, hmmm, I’m afraid I can’t remember much more than that.