Certain common factors are found in each of these versions of Islam, and each version of Islam has its own peculiar variant of these common factors. One of these common elements is the Mahdi, a mystical leadership figure whose appearance is anticipated.
While it is tempting to compare the Mahdi to the Judeo-Christian notion of the Messiah, and while there are some legitimate points of comparison between the two, the Mahdi is a distinct and separate concept. In some Islamic traditions, the Mahdi and Jesus team up at some point in the distant future.
The Mahdi is hoped to restore Islam’s political and military power, and to increase that power to heights not yet experienced. In some versions of the tradition, the Mahdi is expected to established a caliphate.
Since Islam’s inception, a number of individuals have claimed to be the Mahdi, or have been identified by others as the Mahdi. Such individuals are often revolutionaries, seeking to gain power and then use that power to impose a pure or purified version of Islam. “A number of conclusions can be drawn from” examining these would-be Mahdis who’ve appeared over the years, writes scholar Timothy Furnish, who produces a
survey of eight prominent Sunni Mahdist movements over the last millennium. First, and most obvious, they serve as proof that non-Shi’i Mahdism is alive and well and an ever-present threat in the Muslim world. The outbreaks of these movements spanned almost the entire geographical length of the African and Asian landmasses, from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the Bay of Bengal.
Mahdism, therefore, is found among Shi’i, among Sunni, and among other variations of Islam. Geographically, it’s found wherever Islam is found. In Turkey, a man named Mehmet proclaimed himself to be the Mahdi in 1930; historical records are vague and incomplete, but he and a group of his followers were killed because they apparently hoped to overthrow the government.
Another of history’s many would-be Mahdi candidates was Muḥammad bin abd Allah al-Qahtani, whose Mahdist movement seem to be more the product of his brother-in-law, Juhayman al-Otaybi, also spelled ‘al-Utaybi’ in variant transliterations. At some point in the late 1970s, al-Utaybi stated that al-Qahtani was the Mahdi, and in November 1979, the two organized a band of followers who seized a main mosque in Saudi Arabia as part of an attempted military overthrow of the Saud dynasty. In early December, Saudi police and military attacked the group, most of whom were killed in the fighting. The survivors were executed afterward.
Most were peripheral, if not in actual geographic origins, then in terms of their sociocultural or sociopolitical genesis (Mehmet, al-Utaybi). The four characteristics in common among almost all of these historical irruptions of Mahdism were a declared jihad, some degree of Sufi adherence, and grievances against an extant Muslim government and its European Christian allies. Mahdism with its holy wars was directed against allegedly illegitimate Islamic regimes and against Western imperialists seems at first glance to have much in common with modern Islamic fundamentalism. Yet Muslim fundamentalism, while necessary, is ultimately insufficient to explain Mahdism as a compelling force.
Mahdist movements, then, typically call for a ‘return’ to ‘pure’ Islam - a strict and literal following of the Qur’an (Koran), as well as Hadith and other texts. The Mahdi is hoped to exemplify Islamic virtues - military prowess, stern opposition to non-Muslim beliefs and cultures, and bold leadership.
Despite the variations between different sects or variations within Islam, Mahdism is constant, found in otherwise divergent forms of Islam. An understanding of Mahdism helps the reader to understand the spectrum of Islamic political, revolutionary, militant, and terrorist activities in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
Finally, the examples of these historical Mahdist movements, all of which predate the modern period of American unrivaled global supremacy, should help lay to rest the assertion by some Bush administration critics today that “apocalyptic holy warriors come into being primarily because of specific American actions.” “Apocalyptic” holy wars were around long before George Bush or, for that matter, any Western king, prime minister, or president sent troops into the Middle East. Mahdi movements and their religion-based insurrections often - indeed, usually - have more to do with the internal dynamics of the Islamic world than with Western foreign policy.
While terrorist leaders are hesitant to explicitly proclaim themselves to be the Mahdi, because it could provoke assassination attempts from competing Islamic groups, they nonetheless delight in dropping hints in words, or acting in ways, which might encourage their followers to consider the possibility.
The concept of Mahdi plays slightly different roles in the various forms of Islam, but this concept is necessary to understand the drive toward the establishment of a large caliphate, the drive to destroy Western culture, and the drive to establish a Sharia-driven dictatorship.
