Scholars speak of a fine intertwining between doctrinal and political factors in the performance of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Given the recent upsurge of Mahdism in Iran, this paper proposes to view the process from these two angles.
The paper seeks to trace the evolution of Iranian political thought in terms of its relationship to the Imam Mahdi doctrine, as well as the role of this doctrine in the emergence of the Islamic Republic. Thereafter, the paper will follow the Mahdist elements in the discourse of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the links between these Mahdist statements and the movement that has been ongoing in Iran since the flaring of the recent Arab revolutions.
This paper argues that the buoyant and increasing Mahdist movement in the Iranian arena these days is but an extension of a doctrinal debate that has accompanied Twelver Shia political thought since its birth. The paper also assumes the existence of varying viewpoints regarding Mahdism among the powerful actors in the Islamic Republic, and that Ahmadinejad's Mahdist rhetoric is a tool that he uses to push his agenda forward, both at home and abroad.
Since the beginning of March 2011, Iran has been witnessing a debate over the matter of the return of Imam Mahdi[1], and related theological and theoretical issues. The issue began with the distribution by the Mubashiran Zhuhur Institution of hundreds of thousands of CDs, titled "The Reappearance is Nigh", predicting that the world is on the brink of the advent of the twelfth Imam, al-Mahdi Bin al-Hassan al-Askari. The portent for this event, according to the producers of the CD, is what they regard as the emergence of the leaders who were prophesied to prepare for the Imam's reappearance, and whose names and descriptions were mentioned in sayings attributed to the Imams who hail from the House of the Prophet Mohammad. These include the current supreme guide of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Sayyed Ali Khamenei, identified by the CD as the "Khurasani sayyed", i.e. the main leader in this scenario.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is cast as "Shuaib Bin Saleh", the Khurasani sayyed's military lieutenant, and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement, plays the role of the "Yemeni sayyed". On the other hand, Jordan's King Abdullah II was purported to be the Sufyani, while Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was "the last of the Kings of Hijaz", whose death will signal the beginning of the final portents for the end of the occultation of the awaited Imam Mahdi.
As for "al-Nafs al-Zakiyya" [or pure soul in Arabic], who is prophesied to be killed in Iraq before the advent of the Mahdi, according to Mahdist narratives, the interpreters of the Mubashiran Zhuhur Institution identified him as senior Iraqi cleric and scholar Mohammad Baqir al-Hakeem, who was killed by a bomb in 2003.
This is not the first time that Islamic society in general, or the Twelver Shia doctrine in particular[2], has witnessed such projections based on the narratives of the reappearance of Imam Mahdi. This instance was preceded by many similar readings, some of which left no trace, while others left significant political and/or social effects in Islamic history.
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[1] Imam al-Mahdi Mohammad Bin al-Hasan al-Askari, the twelfth in the chain of the "infallible Imams" whom the Twelver Shia believe were anointed by God. He was reportedly born in hiding in 255 Hijri (868 AD), and disappeared into the dungeon of Samarra after the death of his father, Imam al-Askari, in 260 Hijri(874 A.D).
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[2] Twelver Shiism is the largest Shia sect. Adherents believe that the Imam al-Mahdi Bin al-Hassan al-Askari is their twelfth Imam and that he has been in occultation for the last 1,100 years, awaiting the permission of God to reveal himself. This sect is an offshoot of Imami Shiism, which appeared in the second Hijri century (the 8
th century according to the Gregorian Calendar), and holds that the Imams of the House of the Prophet are infallible and appointed by God; and that religious texts decree that the leadership of the Caliphate should pass from Imam Ali to his sons, Hassan and Hussain, and through the descendents of the latter until the twelfth, and last, Imam.
