MAHDI

(Arabic: divinely guided one), in Islamic eschatology, a messianic deliverer who will fill the Earth with justice and equity, restore true religion, and usher in a short golden age lasting seven, eight, or nine years before the end of the world. The Qur'an (Islamic sacred scriptures) does not mention him, and almost no reliable hadith (saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) concerning the mahdi can be adduced. Many orthodox Sunni theologians accordingly question Mahdist beliefs, but such beliefs form a necessary part of Shi'i doctrine. The doctrine of the mahdi seems to have gained currency during the confusion and insecurity of the religious and political upheavals of early Islam (7th and 8th centuries). In 686, al-Mukhtar ibn Abu 'Ubayd at-Thaqafi, leader of a revolt of non-Arab Muslims in Iraq, seems to have first used the doctrine by maintaining his allegiance to a son of 'Ali (Muhammad's son-in-law and fourth caliph), Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyah, even after al-Hanafiyah's death. Abu 'Ubayd taught that, as mahdi, al-Hanafiyah remained alive in his tomb in a state of occultation (ghaybah) and would reappear to vanquish his enemies. In 750 the 'Abbasid revolution made use of eschatological prophecies current at the time that the mahdi would rise in Khorasan in the east, carrying a black banner. Belief in the mahdi has tended to receive new emphasis in every time of crisis. Thus, after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), when most of Spain was lost for Islam, Spanish Muslims circulated traditions ascribed to the Prophet foretelling a reconquest of Spain by the mahdi. During the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, a person claiming to be the mahdi appeared briefly in Lower Egypt. Because the mahdi is seen as a restorer of the political power and religious purity of Islam, the title has tended to be claimed by social revolutionaries in Islamic society. North Africa in particular has seen a number of self-styled mahdis, most important of these being 'Ubayd Allah, founder of the Fatimid dynasty (909); Muhammad ibn Tumart, founder of the Almohad movement in Morocco in the 12th century; and Muhammad Ahmad, the mahdi of the Sudan who, in 1881, revolted against the Egyptian administration.