How to recognize
Mahdi
H
OW
CAN WE
recognize
Mahdi
when he appears? Mahdi, purely
a title, and not a personal name, literally means a ‘guided person’,
that is, a rightly guided person.
From a tradition of the Prophet we learn that
Mahdi
will
appear during a time of intellectual darkness (
fitna duhaima
),
when everyone will be in the dark as regards the realization of
truth. In such an age, the light of the realization of truth can be
had by the special grace of God alone, that is, as a gift and not
by one’s own efforts. In this age of darkness (
fitna)
neither will
one be able to find out the truth on one’s own, nor will there be
anyone to lead one to the truth. In reality, the only source of
guidance will be God.
In such an age, when people in general will be deprived of
true guidance,
Mahdi
, unlike the others in his environment, will
be an exceptionally truly guided person, and that in itself will
be sufficient to identify him.
Mahdi
will not claim to be
Mahdi
,
nor will any voice be heard from heaven that this person is
Mahdi, and that he should be followed. But Mahdi will be an
individual of a unique nature, and it is this uniqueness by which
he will be recognized.
Fitna Duhaima
(An age of utter confusion)
F
ITNA DUHAIMA
LITERALLY
means ‘pitch darkness’.
Here the question arises as to what reason there could be
for this enveloping darkness. Why would people find themselves
in a jungle of intellectual darkness and confusion? When we think
deeply about it, we find that this will happen when there is a
plethora of writers and speakers.
History tells us that this is the first time that there has been
any such situation. For the first time in human history, with the
advent of the printing press, innumerable books have been
