Well something is in the wind.
R E L I G I O N
The Concept of Mahdi in Twelver Shi’ism
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One also encounters signs of hesitation and grasping for ideas concerning the nature and modalities of the occultation. Different theories appear to have co-existed in the decades following the death of the eleventh Imam. One discerns a trace of this in reports regarding a character as influential as Abu Sahl Nowbaḵti (d. 923), who would have played a determining role in the establishment of a definitive form of the theology of occultation. Indeed, the sources attribute two different conceptions of the occultation to him. According to the first, cited by Ebn Bābuya, based on Ketāb al-tanbih wa’l-emāma, a work by Abu Sahl now apparently lost, the Hidden Imam “exists in the world by his spiritual substance thanks to a subsisting essence”. According to a second theory reported by Ebn Nadim (d. 990; in AL-FEHREST), Abu Sahl is said to have maintained that the twelfth Imam died, but secretly left behind a son as a successor to him; the lineage of Imams would thus be perpetuated in occultation from father to son until the final Imam manifests himself publicly as the Mahdi.
Eventually, none of the theories were sustained, but here one recognizes tentative efforts (undoubtedly among the oldest) to rationalize the concept of occultation. During the same period, Abu Jafar Ebn Qebba (d. before 931) wrote some texts with the same objective. The rationalizing theorization of the concept of occultation continued in full force with Shaikh Mofid (d. 1022) and his disciples, Šarif Mortażā (d. 1044), Mo-ḥammad b. Ali Karājaki (d. 1057), and Shaikh Abu Jafar Ṭusi, known as Šayḵ al-Ṭāefa (d. 1067), thinkers who explicitly had recourse to dialectical demonstration drawing notably from some older Mutazilite.
During this period the Imami community underwent what one might consider a serious identity crisis. This “time of confusion” is one of groping in the dark, of research, development, and the more or less painful establishment of doctrines related to the authority and legitimacy of the twelfth Imam. These doctrines were faced with, and overcame, much resistance before eventually standing as articles of faith. The transition from Imami Shi’ism to Twelver Shi’ism was certainly not achieved seamlessly. In the introduction of his Ketāb al-Ḡayba, Ebn Abi Zaynab Nomāni laments the fact that a large majority of his co-religionists still did not know the identity of the Hidden Imam, or even go so far as to contest his existence. Ebn Bābuya makes a similar observation when he says that he was inundated by questions from the Shi’ites of Khorasan regarding the identity of the Hidden Imam and this, in fact, was what prompted him to write his Kamāl al-din.
The main preoccupation of Twelver Shi’ite thinkers at this time was to demonstrate the actual existence of the son of Imam Ḥasan al-Askari, and to establish his legitimate authority as the Hidden Imam. This objective was attained thanks to the sustained efforts of a certain number of thinkers and transmitters of traditions, some of whom have already been cited: Nowbaḵti, Abu Jafar Ebn Qebba, Kolayni, Nomāni, and especially Ebn Bābuya and his masterly Kamāl al-din, the principal architect of the canonization of elements relating to the Hidden Imam, his occultation, and status as eschatological Savior.
Consequently, when Shaikh Ṭusi (d. 1067) wrote his Ketāb al-Ḡayba, a substantial monograph on the subject, articles of faith regarding the Mahdi of the Twelver Imamis appeared already well established: that the son of the eleventh Imam is indeed the twelfth and final Imam; that he had two occultations: during the first and much shorter one, he communicated with believers through the intermediary of four delegates. During the second, which is to last until the end of time, he remains providentially living in his physical body in order to return to save the world as Mahdi. We shall now examine these points in greater detail.
Partition
Birth and occultation of the Mahdi
What precisely do traditional accounts of the Mahdi relate? Versions that would eventually be considered “orthodox” began to emerge in the first half of the 10th century and only attained their definitive form in the following century. The eschatological Savior of Imamism is presented as Abu’l-Qāsem Moḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Askari, twelfth and last among the Imams. He therefore bears the same name and konya as the Prophet, thus fulfilling the hadith that probably goes back to Āṣem b. Bahdala (d. 744-45) from Kufa. It undoubtedly owes its origin to Moḵtār’s rebellion in favor of Moḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiya, son of ʿAli, who, once when he was described as Mahdi, declared that his privilege consisted in bearing the same name and konya as the Prophet.
However, according to Kolayni and others it was inadvisable to call the Mahdi by his name, to protect the Savior from the threat posed by the Abbasid court. He was called by any one of his surnames: mahdi (the Guided One), montaẓar (the Awaited One), ṣāḥeb al-zamān (Lord of the Time), al-ḡāeb (the Occulted/Hidden One), ḥojjat Allāh (Proof of God), ṣāḥeb al-amr (Lord of the Cause), baqiyat Allāh (Remainder of God) and, most often, qāem (a complex term meaning among other things: the standing, one who stands up, one who rises, the resurrector). The latter title, which among the Imamis gradually replaced that of Mahdi, was employed in Shi’ite circles to designate the Imam who “stood up” to fight against unjust and illegitimate power.
According to some accounts, his mother, to whom various names are given (Narjis, Rayḥāna, Sawsan, Maryam), was a black slave of Nubian origin (the first three names, being those of flowers and plants, and often given to female slaves, seems to confirm this version); according to other accounts, undoubtedly legendary and hagiographic, she was the grand-daughter of the Byzantine emperor, himself a disciple of the Apostle Simon. According to this version, the Byzantine princess was captured by Muslim troops and sold as a slave in Baghdad to a man belonging to the entourage of the tenth Imam, Ali al-Naqi who then came to Sāmarrā and offered the girl to Ḥakima, the latter’s sister. Even before her captivity, the princess had a dream vision of Mary, mother of Jesus, as well as of Fāṭema, daughter of the Prophet Moḥammad, both of whom had asked her to convert to Islam and let herself be captured by the Muslim armies as she was destined for a glorious life. In Sāmarrā, the tenth Imam, having by clairvoyance recognized in her the future mother of the Mahdi, gave her in marriage to his son Ḥasan, the future eleventh Imam. Signs of the mother’s pregnancy as well as the birth of the child were miraculously concealed, since the Abbasids sought to eliminate an expected child whom persistent rumors described as a Savior. The date most often cited for his birth is 15 Šabān 256/18th July 870 (one of the most important Imami festivals). The father showed the newborn to some forty intimate disciples, and then the child was hidden. According to many accounts, the eleventh imam is said to have adopted a two-fold tactic to guarantee the child’s security. First, apart from his intimate circle, the Imam kept the birth of the child secret, going so far as to designate his mother, Ḥodayṯ, as his sole heir. Now, it is known that according to Imami law, under some conditions the inheritance belongs to the mother of the deceased when the latter does not leave behind a child. Secondly, Imam Ḥasan al-Askari had recourse to a ruse to cloud the issue and distract attention. Some time before his death in 874, he allowed a rumor to spread that his servant Ṣaqil was pregnant with his child. Informants of the caliph al-Motamed (r. 870-92) closely observed the activities of the Imam, who was kept under surveillance in the military camp at Sāmarrā. When, following a serious illness, the Imam’s death seemed inevitable, the caliph dispatched his trusted men to the site. After the eleventh Imam died, his servant was arrested for observation. During the year that followed, she showed no signs of pregnancy and was released and promptly forgotten. The caliph and his entourage were then convinced that the deceased eleventh Imam left behind no descendants. According to Imami authors, divine providence had been accomplished. The twelfth Imam, the awaited Savior, was thus saved and grew up in. This “gilded legend” meets the obvious hagiographic requirements, but at the same time it reflects the uncertainties that continued to be felt in Imami circles regarding the very existence of a child of Imam Ḥasan al-Askari. This led, as we have seen, to a number of schisms. It is certainly no accident that the sources present “the concealed birth” as one of the distinctive signs of the Savior.
Not unlike previous imams, the Mahdi had a birth and childhood bathed in the miraculous. Supernatural signs, divine lights, and celestial messengers accompanied him from his very birth. From his early childhood on, he demonstrated initiatory knowledge and manifested supernormal powers. Our sources regularly relate that even while in hiding, the young twelfth Imam was visited by initiated adepts of his father, and the latter never missed an occasion to reveal to his followers that his son was indeed the qāem. Upon the death of his father in 260/874, the twelfth Imam entered his first occultation while still a child, later termed the Minor Occultation, which lasted 70 lunar years, i.e., until 329/940. During this period, the Hidden Imam is said to have communicated with his believers through four intermediary delegates or representatives: (1) Abu Amr Oṯmān b. Said Amri/Omari; (2) Abu Jafar Moḥammad Amri/ʿOmari, son of the above; (3) Abu’l-Qāsem Ḥosayn b. Ruḥ, from the influential family of the Banu Nowbaḵt; and (4) Abu’l-Ḥasan Ali b. Moḥammad Semmari.
The most important activities of these “representatives” would have included ensuring that canonical precepts were respected by the believers, the collection and distribution of taxes, delivering questions of a religious nature to the Hidden Imam, making his responses known in public and, finally, performing miracles to convince those believers who were prey to perplexity and confusion. Ebn Bābuya dedicates several pages of his Kamāl al-din to enumerating and describing the supernatural powers of the representatives, perceived by the faithful to be the result of direct initiation by the Hidden Imam.
According to official tradition, in 329/940, the fourth and last delegate received a final letter signed by the Hidden Imam in which he declared that henceforth and “until the end of time,” no one will see him or be his representative, and that whosoever declares otherwise is no less than an imposter. This important document, apparently reported for the first time by Ebn Bābuya in his Kamāl al-din, heralds the second, or Major Occultation, which according to Twelver Shiite doctrine still continues and will last until the eschatological return of the Mahdi.
Let us end this section by recalling an interesting phenomenon at the time of the occultation that increases devotion to the Hidden Imam and strengthens faith in his invisible presence: accounts of meetings with the Mahdi. Regarding encounters during the Major Occultation, henceforth a question arises to which some Imami thinkers have responded: how to consider accounts of meetings during the Major Occultation authentic when in his final letter to his last representative the Imam declares any encounter to be impossible until the end of time? It is important to note that Ebn Bābuya, who reports this letter in his Kamāl al-din, does not hesitate to relate in the same work some accounts of meetings with the Hidden Imam after his Major Occultation.
From the very beginning, ocular vision of the imam, to which the letter refers, seems to have been understood not in a general sense, but as a condition of the Hidden Imam’s representative. Thus, what is declared impossible during the major occultation (thus until the end of time) is not an encounter with the Hidden Imam as such, but laying claim to the niāba of the latter by citing a meeting with the Hidden Imam as grounds. A believer may be granted the privilege of meeting the Imam, but if following this he declares himself to be the “representative” of the Imam due to the encounter, he is considered (according to terms of the letter) no less than a liar and impostor.
These encounters may occur anywhere, but certain sites seem to be more propitious: Mecca; beside the Imams’ mausoleums; the Cave (sardāb) in Sāmarrāʾ where the Hidden Imam is said to have begun his occultation; the mosque of Sahla in Najaf, and the sanctuary of Jamkarān, not far from Qom.Typologically, one can distinguish three categories of narratives of encounters, based on the principal dimension promoted: a humanitarian dimension in which the great generosity of the Hidden Imam towards his believers and his concern for their well-being are emphasized; an initiatory dimension in which the Imam teaches his believers prayers, transmits spiritual knowledge, and bears secrets etc.; and finally, an eschatological dimension, presented mainly by late mystical sources, in which the encounter prompts a believer’s individual spiritual resurrection.
Partition
The end of time and rising of the Mahdi
The “end of time” or, in other words, the date of the final advent of the Hidden Imam, is unknown and believers are urged to await deliverance patiently and piously. The future coming of the Savior is the most frequently cited subject in predictions made by the Prophet, Fāṭema, and the Imams: entire lengthy chapters are dedicated to the topic in the sources. This coming is heralded by a number of signs (alāmāt). The universal signs are the widespread invasion of the earth by Evil, the overcoming of knowledge by ignorance, and the loss of a sense of the sacred and all that links man to God and his neighbors. These, in some measure, require the manifestation (ẓohur) and the rising (ḵoruj, qiām) of the Qāem, or else humanity will be overwhelmed by darkness.
Furthermore, there are certain specific signs among which five recur more regularly and are hence justifiably called the “five signs”: (1) the coming of Sofyāni, the enemy of the Qāem, who will command an army in battle against the latter; (2) the advent of Yamāni, who appears in the Yemen to preach support for the Qāem; (3) the Cry/Scream (ṣayḥa, nedā ) of supernatural origin, coming from the sky and calling man to defend the Imam’s cause; (4) the swallowing (ḵasf) of an army composed of the Imam’s enemies in a desert often located between Mecca and Medina, according to a hadith most likely propagated by Abd-Allāh b. Zobayr during his war propaganda against the Umayyad caliph Yazid (r. 680-83), during the latter’s campaign against Mecca and Medina, popularized by the traditionist of Basra, Qatāda; and (5) the assassination by the Meccans of the messenger to the Qāem, often called Nafs or al-Nafs al-Zakiya (echoing the messianic rebellion and death in 762 of the Hasanid Moḥammad b. Abd-Allāh, surnamed al-Nafs al-Zakiya).
The Mahdi thus becomes manifest, all the while having miraculously maintained his youth. He fights and definitively uproots Evil and pervasive ignorance, re-establishing the world to its original pure. For this to occur, he must first avenge the assassination of Imam Ḥosayn in order that the majority of Muslims be purged of the most villainous crime that it ever committed. Moreover, according to the eschatological doctrine of raja (q.v.), a certain number of past saints, victims of their community’s injustice, and their persecutors come back to life in order that the good may take revenge on the evil ones. The Savior will thus not only re-establish Islam, but all religions, to their purity and original integrity, making “submission to God” (eslām) the universal religion. He will also bring wisdom to mankind by revealing the esoteric secrets of sacred.
In this final battle against the forces of Evil, the Qāem is obviously not alone. First, he will be accompanied by certain important characters from the sacred history of humanity; thus, according to different hadiths one finds various prophets of the past such as Jesus and the Prophet Moḥammad, and various Imams, most often Ali and/or Ḥosayn. In this war, the Mahdi commands an army in which, apart from the masses of oppressed who enlist depending on the progress of his victories, three kinds of “warriors” are present: (1) angels, especially the 313 angels that accompanied the 313 fighters from Badr, the site of a battle of the Prophet against the Meccans; (2) a terrifying celestial entity named Fear (rob); who marches at the head of the Mahdi’s army and terrifies his enemies; and (3) most importantly, 313 Companions of the Qāem forming his militia (jayš), a term whose letters also add up to the value of 313. These are specially initiated disciples bearing secret knowledge and possessing miraculous powers. The Savior will no doubt triumph, and the entire world will be brought to submission. Forces of injustice and ignorance will once and for all be exterminated, the earth embellished with justice and wisdom, and humanity revived by knowledge. The Mahdi thus prepares the world for the ultimate trial of the final resurrection of the Last Judgment. According to some traditions, he will reign upon the earth for some time (7, 9, 19 . . . years), after which occurs the death of all humanity just prior to the Judgment. Other traditions report that after the death of the Qāem, the government of the world will remain in the hands of the initiated for a certain period before the Day of Resurrection.
