In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is a Messianic figure who, it is believed, will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment, and will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.
Mahmoud Pargoo offers the explanation that according to Shīʿa hadiths, the mahdi "will bring a new religion, a new book and a new law"; making hard won Islamic learning and beloved, established religious rituals and institutions "redundant".
"[8] In the tenth century the Isma'ili sect split into two – the Salamiyids, headquartered in Salamiyah and led by Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah; and the Qarmatians, centred in al-Hasa (Eastern Arabia) – each proclaiming a Mahdi.
The sixth caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, was known for "unpredictable commands" (destruction of churches, nocturnal ceasefires, liquidation of all dogs, prohibition of music) carried out with extreme violence – and occasionally rescinded with equal suddenness".
A young Kutama Berber, al-Mawati was proclaimed as the Mahdi by disillusioned adherents of al-Mahdi Billah, in the aftermath of the purge of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i and anti-Kutama riots in the cities of Ifriqiya.
The head of the Fatimid army (Al-Afdal), sidelined the son designated heir (Abu Mansur Nizar) of the deceased caliph for a more compliant son-in-law.
In the middle of Ramadan in 559 AH (1164 CE), a successor of Hasan-i-Sabbah, Hassan II gathered his followers and announced to "jinn, men and angels" that the Hidden Imam had freed them "from the burden of the rules of Holy Law".
[17] Ibn Tumart rejected all other Islamic legal schools, and saw in the lax morality of the ruling Almorvid dynasty signs of that The Hour of Judgement was nigh.
[18] Although declared mahdi by his followers in 1121 CE,[19] and calling himself imam and masum (literally in Arabic: innocent or free of sin), ibn Tumart consulted with a council of ten of his oldest disciples, and conform traditional Berber representative government, later added an assembly of fifty tribal leaders.
[citation needed] His failure to capture Marrakech in 1130 "undermined his messianic pretentions to invulnerability", and he died shortly after designated Abd al Mumin his successor with the title of Caliph.
[19] Abd al Mumin claimed universal leadership in Islam – and placed members of his own family in power, converting the system into a traditional sultanate.
For example, in Hilla, a center of Shi'i learning in central Iraq, each day from afternoon to evening prayer, 100 townsmen participated in a ritual appealing to the Mahdi to reappear.
[20] After the Mongol khanate disintegrated after the death of Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan in 1335, itinerant brotherhoods propagated "popular spirituality", with the "foremost" group, the Shaykhiyya-Juryya, announcing the imminent coming of the Mahdi and calling on Shia to prepare for his arrival by taking up arms.
Messianic agitation was taken up in 1386 by a dream interpreter by the name of Fazlallah al-Astarbadi who proclaimed himself the "manifestation of divine glory" and possessing the attributes of the "master of the Age", including the ability to discern hidden meanings of letters of the alphabet (hurūfiyya).
[21] A generation after the execution of Fazlallah al-Astarbadi in the early fifteenth century, Ishaq al-Khuttalani, a Sufi master of the Kubrawiyya order in what is now Tajikistan, proclaimed one of his followers, Nurbakhsh (the Gift of Light), the awaited Messiah (i.e. Mahdi).
Opponents of his heresy arose in holy cities of Iraq, but his power was such that he destroyed the Hilla and Najaf, even desecrating Ali's tomb.
In 1509, the Banū Saʿdid, a family claiming ancestry from Muhammad and aided with the military support of the Shaziliyya, "the most powerful brotherhood in the region", took control of Sous.
[26] Unsuccessfully challenging the Saʿdid dynasty was another figure making use of Mahdi title, Ahmed ibn Abi Mahalli (Arabic: ابن أبي محلي); n (1559–1613).
His head was severed and hung from the city ramparts until it disintegrated, but despite this graphic evidence "part of the population" in the region refused to accept his death and believed that he "had hidden himself from public view.
The Safavids depended for military power on "fanatical Turkmen tribes", known as "Qizilbash", who were accused of paganism and shamanism and even ritual cannibalism.
The Anatolian origins of the Safavid family were conveniently forgotten and replaced by a prophetic ancestry that allowed the dynasty to represent itself as the instrument of the twelfth imam during the course of the Great Occultation.
[29][30] Ahmed ibn Abi Mahalli (1559–1613), from the south of Morocco, was a Qadi and religious scholar who proclaimed himself mahdi and led a revolution (1610–13) against the reigning Saadi dynasty.
Agha Muhammad Reza, a Shia Muslim of Iranian ancestry living in the Sylhet region of Bengal rose to prominence as a Sufi pir.
Bu Ziyan had served as representative of the Anti-French leader Abd al-Qadir, but now led an uprising with the help of many members of the strongest Sufi brotherhood, Rahmaniyya.
Bu Ziyan's head was mounted on a pike at the village entrance, but "word spread through the Sahara that the Mahdi – or at least one of his sons had escaped alive.
While Bábism was violently opposed and has very few members in modern times, it continued in the form of the Baháʼí Faith, whose followers consider the Báb as a central figure of their own.
He established control over the province of Kordofan and went on to lead a successful military campaign against the Turko-Egyptian government of Sudan, defeating the Anglo-Egyptian army and capturing the Sudanese capital, Khartoum in 1885.
Muhammad bin abd Allah al-Qahtani (1935–1979) was proclaimed Mahdi by his brother-in-law, Juhayman al-Otaibi, who led over 200 militants to seize the Grand Mosque in Mecca on 20 November 1979.
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi (born 1941) is the founder of the spiritual movements Messiah Foundation International (MFI) and Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam.
[38] Unofficially, Iraqi and American forces are accused of wiping out the entire community of the Soldiers of Heaven, including women and children, at a "camp in Zarga, north of Najaf",[38] According to seminary expert, Mehdi Ghafari, some dozens of Kurdish Sufis who claimed to be the Mahdi were imprisoned in Iran in 2012.