فصلنامه انتظار موعود
سال شانزدهم شماره 52 (بهار 1395)

In Islamic traditions, the promised Mahdi’s identity and personality who is one of the indisputable beliefs among all Islamic sects is clearly and precisely stated. He is a man of the Prophet’s progeny and the Household, with the same name as of the Prophet, Alavi, Fatemi and Hussayni, and “Hassan” is his father’s name. However, in some traditions, the promised Mahdi (A.S) is from the House of Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle, and from the descendant of Imam Hasan Mojtaba and his father’s name is “Abdollah”. Meanwhile, this paper investigates this group of traditions with a descriptive-analytic approach, it has found that these traditions cannot be invoked due to their incompatibility with authentic and frequent traditions and because of the weakness of their documentation. At the same time, some interpretations and justifications have been stated for them that assuming the validity of these justifications, these traditions are not incompatible with the other ones.

One of the important issues related to Mahdism is the topic of “global justice and the how of its implementation” for which there are a lot of rational and traditional reasons on the necessity of its realization. Conventional judicial methods which rely on the witness, evidence and hints have failed to bring about the true justice. Therefore, the presence of the traditions indicating the Imam Mahdi’s judgment based on his spiritual inner knowledge in Shiite sources proves a new judicial method based on the comprehensive knowledge of the Infallible Imam.
In this research, which is done with the library method, in the documentation and source with a documentary method, and in the analysis part with a descriptive-analytic method; while we set forth one of the most important objections made against this judgment by Imam Mahdi (A.S) in some of the Shiite sources (i.e the uncertainty and the weakness of such hadiths), we respond to and defend them.
The total of narrations related to the judgment of Imam Mahdi (A.S) based on the spiritual inner knowledge can be divided into two categories in terms of reliability: A) traditions that its narrators of the chain of document are all reliable, supported and connected to the Infallible Imam and such narrations are provable in terms of their documentation and content signification; B) traditions which either lack the first transmitter or has poor or unknown narrators, which of course can be considered due to their thematic cooperation and the impossibility of lying claims in this regard.
Therefore, considering the fact that the document of 10 narrations is continuous, authentic, and valid and other such news also verify this view, we can admit the news about the Imam Mahdi’s (A.S) judgment and the documents of the traditions are equivalent and provide the validity of the documents.

With the formation of the new wave of Islamophobia and Islam-fighting in the recent decades in the West, some writers and Christian missionaries have endeavored to call Islam satanic and compare it to the axis of evil mentioned in the Bible. By presenting various theories, these people have gone so far as they have compared the Islamic savior (Imam Mahdi (A.S)) to the Antichrist mentioned in the Bible. In this context, the theory of “Islamic Antichrist” tries to prove the behavioral traits and the character of the Islamic Savior is the same as the characteristics of the Antichrist mentioned in the words of the Scripture by referring to the Islamic and Christian sources, and then, they have raised the view of “Islam, the robe of Antichrist” and introduced Imam Mahdi (A.S) in Shia narrations as the example of Antichrist. Since these theories have become quite well-known in the West with the help of media promotion in the religious grounds of the West, it has paved the ground for general intellectual poisoning. It seems necessary to review and criticize these theories. From this direction, at first we describe the preliminaries, documentation and results of these two viewpoints and then we consider and criticize the fundamentals and evidences. The result is many of the interpretations of the owners of the theory from the Bible and the Islamic Teachings are incorrect. The final realization of the comparison has also several flaws which falsifies its origin.

“Millennium orientation”, meaning believing in the imminent end of the current system of this world and the emergence of the government in its extreme goodness, harmony and justice in the world, has been the subject of study for the scholars of various sciences such as scholars in the field of theology, sociology, psychology, anthropology and political sciences, because the most important indicators of the Millennium orientists at first is the dissatisfaction with the status quo and then believing in the course of the world where justice, peace and prosperity is inclusive.
Although the origin of the term dates back to the period before the ancient times, the growth and the development of this concept has formed in the Christianity and refers to the thousand-year Government of the Kingdom of God on earth. In general, the typologies related to the Millennium can be investigated in the two approaches of “secular” and “spiritual” which of course are similar to each other in some cases in spite of the difference in approach. This similarity indicates the fact that the type of the believed promised has had a significant impact on the millennium-oriented movements.

Analysis of the presence of Imam among the Shiite thought and knowledge paradigms has been responsible for the essential role in the field of religious studies. A comprehensive, reasonable, and thoughtful analysis of various aspects of the issue of Imamate can bring about several normative and epistemological achievements. In the meantime, “the necessity of the presence of Imam from God’s viewpoint” as a rational necessity in the prevailing thought of Imamate school demands for a systematic and rational analysis.
The current article explains and analyzes the issue of necessity of the existence of the Imam with a rational and logical approach with a focus on the ideas and works of Master Javadi Amoli in the form of various arguments and evidences. “Favor reasoning”, “the final reason” reasoning, “social order maintenance”, “the rule for possibility of the noblest”, “the rule for Oneness” are considered to be the most important rational arguments on the necessity of the existence of the Imam, each of which intends to provide a clear picture of the aspects of the issue of Imamate. Each of the five above-mentioned arguments deals with the necessity of the existence of Imam from the Almighty God’s viewpoint in the caseworks and responds to the possible problems in some cases.

While “globalization” has brought profound changes and created a new stage of life for mankind, it has left numerous effects. Considering the fact that one of the important discussions of Mahdism thought is investigating the grounds of global revolution of Imam Mahdi (A.S), in this study, we explain that how globalization can politically pave the ground for the world-wide revolution of Imam Mahdi (A.S). While this article discusses some of the political effects of globalization, it points to the opportunities which create the either positive or negative contexts of the formation of Imam Mahdi’s uprising and revolution with a descriptive-analytic approach.