33 Facts About Mahdi

Mahdi is said to be a descendant of Muhammad who will appear shortly before the prophet ?Isa and lead Muslims to rule the world.

Term Mahdi is derived from the Arabic root h-d-y, commonly used to mean "divine guidance".

However, Mahdi can be read in active voice, where it means the one who guides, as well as passive voice, where it means the one who is guided.

Term al-Mahdi was employed from the beginning of Islam, but only as an honorific epithet and without any messianic significance.

Mahdi will send an expedition against them, but they will defeat them.

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Mahdi will stay seven years and then die, and the Muslims will pray over him.

The association of the name Muhammad with the Mahdi seems to have originated with Ibn al-Hanafiyya, who shared the epithet Abu al-Qasim with Muhammad, the Islamic prophet.

In Shi'a Islam, the eschatological Mahdi was commonly given the epithet al-Qa'im, which can be translated as 'he who will rise, ' signifying his rise against tyranny in the end of time.

In Sunni Islam, the Mahdi doctrine is not theologically important and remains as a popular belief instead.

Common opinion among the Sunnis is that the Mahdi is an expected ruler to be sent by God before the end times to re-establish righteousness.

Mahdi is held to be from among the descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali, and his physical characteristics including a broad forehead and curved nose.

Mahdi will be from the Hasanid branch of Muhammad's descendants, as opposed to the Shi'a belief that he is of the Husaynid line.

Abu Dawood quotes Muhammad as saying: "The Mahdi will be from my family, from the descendants of Fatimah".

Mahdi will fill the Earth with equity and justice just as it had previously been filled with injustice and oppression.

The Mahdi will die after 7 to 13 years, whereas Jesus after 40 years.

Mahdi lived under his father's care until 874 when the latter was killed by the Abbasids.

When his father died in 874, possibly poisoned by the Abbasids, the Mahdi went into occultation by the divine command and was hidden from public view for his life was in danger from the Abbasids.

Mahdi was later succeeded by his son Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Amri, who held the office for some fifty years and died in 917.

Shi'a scholars have argued that the longevity of the Mahdi is not unreasonable given the long lives of Khidr, Jesus, and the Dajjal, as well as secular reports about long-lived men.

Along these lines, Tabatabai emphasizes the miraculous qualities of al-Mahdi, adding that his long life, while unlikely, is not impossible.

Mahdi is viewed as the sole legitimate ruler of the Muslim world and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran recognizes him as the head of the state.

Mahdi will be "a young man of medium stature with a handsome face, " with black hair and beard.

Mahdi is viewed as the restorer of true Islam, and the restorer of other monotheistic religions after their distortion and abandonment.

Mahdi establishes the kingdom of God on earth and Islamizes the whole world.

In Isma'ilism a distinct concept of the Mahdi developed, with select Isma'ili imams representing the Mahdi or al-Qa'im at various times.

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The propaganda of the Mahdi's return had a special appeal to peasants, Bedouins, and many of the later-to-be Twelver Shi'is, who were in a state of confusion in the aftermath of the death of their 11th imam Hasan al-Askari, and resulted in many conversions.

The Mahdi went on to denounce Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad as liars, abolished Islam, and instituted the cult of fire.

Meanwhile in Syria, Abd Allah al-Mahdi's partisans took control of the central Syria in 903 before they were routed by the Abbasids.

Mahdi now went to North Africa and founded the Fatimid Caliphate in Qayrawan in 909.

Messianic expectations associated with the Mahdi nevertheless did not materialize, contrary to the expectations of his propagandists and followers who expected him to do wonders.

Mahdi attempted to downplay messianism and asserted that the propaganda of Muhammad ibn Isma'il's return as the Mahdi had only been a ruse to avoid Abbasid persecution and protect the real imam predecessors of his.

The Mahdi was actually a collective title of the true imams from the progeny of Ja'far al-Sadiq.

Similarly, the Mahdi is not an apocalyptic figure to launch global jihad and conquer the world, but a peaceful, who spreads Islam with "heavenly signs and arguments".