Promised Messiah and Mahdi has come with Peace.

The Promised Messiah, according to Islamic teaching, was to come at a time marked also by the advent of a Mahdi. True, in other Traditions, we are told that the Mahdi is none other than the Messiah............



It is important, however, to remind ourselves that when the Muslim Community became divided into sects many people began to fabricate Traditions to serve their respective interests. The fabrications were made to promote sectarian beliefs. We meet with many so-called Traditions which tell of the coming of the Mahdi and describe the signs of his advent. But the words employed in these Traditions make it quite clear that they have been designed to favour some sectional or sectarian belief. Some of these Traditions may be true or may contain elements of truth. Even so, a seeker after truth must exercise great care in using them. Such Traditions should not be allowed to become decisive ill the discovery of truth. To cite all example: many Traditions recorded during the Abbaside times apparently speak of the Mahdi and his time. But their net effect is the suggestion that the pro-Abbaside disturbances in Khurasan were sanctioned and supported by God. That those Traditions were fabricated is proved by subsequent history. A thousand years have passed since those Traditions were recorded, but a Mahdi answering their description has not appeared in the world. Similarly, there are Traditions in which the signs announce- ing the time of the Mahdi have been mixed up with descriptions of past events. Unless the two are disentangled from each other, unless the past events which figure as signs of the future are clearly distinguished from the true signs of the future, we cannot reach the truth. 'Those who were ignorant of the main currents of Islamic history have been misled by such fabrications. They treated these Traditions as descriptions of the future and waited in vain for events which had occurred long before. The fabrications, as I have said, were designed to further sectarian ends. Therefore, while considering the signs of the coming of the Mahdi, it is imperative that we should eliminate, out of the traditional descriptions, those which do not point to any definite events. Only thus can we guard against falling into a pit dug by interested people for the furtherance of their own ends......................



The Holy Prophet of Islam (may he receive unlimited mercy and blessings from God) took care to narrate the signs of the coming of the Messiah and the Mahdi as one continuous chain. If we remember this, we can guard against many a mistake and many a mischief created deliberately by interested persons. A chain of signs has to hang together................ These are signs which have to wait on cosmic changes spread over hundreds of years. These signs no human beings, or groups of human beings working together for generations, could create. Another precaution which the Holy Prophet observed in narrating the signs of the Mahdi is that many of those signs have been marked out by him as signs peculiar to the time of the Mahdi. They are signs which were not to appear at any time before the advent of the Mahdi. We should be guided by these rational and useful pointers.


General state of religion
General state of Muslims
State of morals
Religious knowledge and the Ulema
Social conditions and the condition of women
Pestilences
Sex ratio in the general population
Transport, communications, and international contact
Economic conditions
Political conditions
On the surface of the earth
Important heavenly events
A Variety of signs

A Note on the Dadjjal