Reflections upon the Existence of the People of the Scripture at the Time of Imam Mahdi's Global Governance

There are three theories in relation to the presence of the religions at the appearance era and the time of Imam Mahdi’s global governance: 1. Proof theory, 2. Negation theory, 3. Consolidated theory. In the proof theory, the existence of the people of the Scripture is proved and in the negation theory, their non-existence is proved. And in the consolidated theory, the existence of the people of the Scripture at the time of appearance and their non-existence at the time of the global governance is discussed. In this article, among the three mentioned theories, only the proof theory is considered and its result which is the diversity of religions and the existence of Christianity and Judaism at the time of appearance and global governance is proved. The owners of this theory have resorted to several rational and narrative reasons to prove their claim, such as resorting to Qur’anic verses which justify the issue under discussion with a general and specific approach. The content of the general verses verifies the freedom and free will for the human and rejects the compulsion and obstruction in the matters of belief. And the certain verses explicitly emphasize the existence of Christianity and Judaism and their followers until the Day of Resurrection. Moreover, among the presented reasons in this regard, there are the rational reasons such as “human freedom” and the principle of “task-centering” in this world, the two principles which accompany the human for good. The other reason is the idea of consistency of the Prophet’s biography with Imam Mahdi’s biography and the necessity of this consistency is Imam Mahdi’s perfect behavior with the people of Scripture, and this perfect behavior demands for the acceptance of the Christians and Jews as the religious minorities in the Global Governance of Imam Mahdi.