فصلنامه مشرق موعود
پیاپی 53 (بهار 1399)

Ibn Mas'ud, who is one of the great companions and the prominent narrators of the Prophet's narrations, has quoted several hadiths of the Messenger of God (SA), as some great Sunni narrators have cited about nine hundred narrations from the Messenger of God (SA) through him. One of these narrations is a valid hadith in which the twelve successors of the Prophet (SA) are mentioned. In this hadith, which is noted in the most authoritative sources of the Sunnis, and accepted by the narrators and other scholars of both major sects of Islam, the Messenger of God(AS) announced the number of his successors, and the leaders of the Islamic Ummah after him as twelve and analogized them to the heads and leaders of the Children of Israel tribes . The above-mentioned Hadith, with the characteristics cited in it, cannot be applied to anyone other than the Imams of the Prophet Progeny(AS).

The Holy Qur'an has paid more attention to the narrative of the Bani Israel among all the tribes, and in the fourth and seventh verses of the Sura Isra'ah, it mentions their fate and destiny and promises them revenge in two time because of their great corruption and rebellion. This study seeks to explain the important axes of these verses by focusing on the first verses of Sura Isra, using a comparative interpretation approach and a library approach, which include: the concept of the Divine Judgment; the concept of "ALketab"; the corruption of the Israelites; Divine revenge on the two great corruptions - how the Israelites returned to power and finally the revenge of the oppressor nation. The process of this analysis reveals, however, that regarding the corruption of the Bani Israel, the dominant and widespread theory among the commentators is that these two stages of corruption have taken place in the history of the Israelites and that the statements of the Prophetic Verses are news of the past and the commentators are in principle It is common ground that these corruptions took place on both sides of the Israeli side, but their comparative study reveals many major drawbacks to the theory, so the theory is highly disputed. However, he has put forward another theory that could be in line with the political and content propositions of the verse.

The purposefulness of the system of existence, the finality of history, and the need for the ultimate evolution of man and human society are included in the common teachings of all divine religions, reported in the Holy Qur’an. In addition to the divine teachings, since the seventeenth century when the idea of evolution of history and society has been accepted by most historians, philosophers of history, social scientists, sociologists and anthropologists of the West, many of western thinkers such as Spencer and Taylor, Pascal, Igo, August Kent, Condorcet and Hegel, who believed in the Absolute Spirit of the World, decided to draw certain shapes for the type, how and quality of the evolution of society and human history. Although the basis, type of attitude and detail of the thoughts of these thinkers are assumed with many challenges, being its study beyond the scope of this article, according to the Qur’anic verses and the Prophetic (PBUH) and Ahl al-Bayt (AS)’s narrations, the purposefulness of the system of creation, finality of history and the evolution of man and human society will be set and manifested by the advent of the apocalyptic savior in Mahdavi society. Findings of this article, based on the study of verses and hadiths in a descriptive-analytical method, prove the fact that the Mahdavi utopia is the only society that shows the highest evolutionary stage of history, society and the perfection of human beings, by which man will rank in the highest degree of Allah’s servitude, rationality and knowledge; thus, Mahdavi utopia, on the one hand, is the manifestation of the perfect reason and all human dimensions and virtues, and on the other, is the performance of the vast divine mercy for that Allah created beings.

Jesus Christ son of Maryam is one of the prophets whose life in general and his role in the end of time in particular are of great importance in the religious sources of Islam. Among the verses of the Qur'an, referring to the destined words of Christ at the end of time, the people of scripture 'faith in Imam of the Age in the light of Jesus' guidance and the supremacy of Jesus 'followers over his opponents until the Day of Judgment are things that illustrated the informative role of Jesus Advent, from the following of Christ the Imam of the Age in prayer, which is mentioned in several narrations, we can understand his informant role as well. In some other narrations, there is talk of Christ assisting Imam of the Age, which completes the informative role of Jesus in the end of time. In this research, we have tried to explain the functions of Jesus' Advent during the Advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ) by explaining the informative data, and in the process of research, we have come to the conclusion that Jesus has a very important role in informing Christians and believing the people of the Book in the Imam of the Age.

Examination and research about the apocalyptic ideas and the history of occurring the signs of the Resurrection, including the Advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ) and subsequently Jesus Christ Advent , have been common among Muslims since the beginning of the history of Islam. Meanwhile, some religious scholars with different intellectual tendencies have tried to determine the date of these events. In the present article, the method of critical research by Ahmad Effendi Hayaati (Sunni scholar of the Ottoman Empire), based on his short treatise entitled Tahaafotu Mostakhrejihe, on the determinants of date for the signs of the Resurrection, especially the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ) has been examined. The treatise was written in Arabic and then translated into Ottoman Turkish by the original author at the request of some government figures for public benefit. The content of the treatise has been read and reviewed based on the manuscript number "1701" in the Topkapi Museum of Istanbul. In his treatise, Hayaati mentions a person named "Osman Effendi" who had predicted the year 1213 AH as the year of the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ). In this treatise, Hayaati criticizes the documents and methods of the determinants of Date and believes that categories such as the date history for the signs of the resurrection and the advent of Imam Mahdi cannot be predicted by methods such as Jafr, Zij and Zaycheh. The Prophet of Islam has also been unaware of the time for occurrence of these events and mystical intuitions are not valid in this regard. If there were probably any hadiths about determining the time for the signs of resurrection they would be news with a single narrator that are not valid and would be inconsistent with explicit texts of Quran and prophet tradition and must be set aside. In fact, in this way, Hayaati achieves the theory of the impossibility of determining date for occurring the signs of the resurrection including the advent of Imam Mahdi(AJ).

The verses 4 to 8 of the Surah of Isra, as well as the verse 104 of this surah, have spoken about the divine threats to Bani Israel. During modern era and after the formation of the Zionist Regime, a special attention has been given to these verses, and new adaptations, which are related to the current sedition of Zionism, have been presented about them. A careful exploration is needed in this regard due to the significant and important effects of the understanding of these verses especially in contemporary space; In this regard, it’s necessary to evaluate and discuss the narratives that follow these verses because when the issuance of a serious interpretation from the Immaculate is clear, its rightfulness will be definite and it will also be the final word. This research is to look for a documentary and content evaluation and general analysis of the narratives in this regard in Shi’i and Sunni sources using a descriptive-analytical method. In total, 10 narratives are explicitly attributed to the Immaculate Imams, of which 2 are in Sunni sources and the rest in Shi'i sources; the aforementioned narratives all have problem in terms of the narrative document and sometimes in terms of the validity of the source principle. In terms of content, their content is often opposed to the contents obtained from the clear sense of the verses, considering the contents of the discussed verses, and non-attributable to the immaculate. However, the narratives in Shi’i sources are united in three general themes; though it is likely that these themes are originally issued from the immaculate Imams, considering the evidence, but they have been transmitted in the wrong way for some reasons.

The Qaramata sect was formed in the second half of the second century (AH), based on the belief in the Imamate and Mahdaviyyat of Muhammad ibn Ismail, the grandson of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (as). The Qarmatians expressed certain ideas about Mahdaviyyat. At the beginning, they believed in the Mahdaviyyat of Muhammad ibn Ismail and considered him the seventh Imam and the terminator of the sixth round and Qa'im al-Qiyamah. They have introduced many esoteric interpretations for the Qa'im al-Qiyamah in the round system and believed that he was alive and Abdullah bin Maimoon was his intermediator and he was the last person to hold the position of Imamate and Prophethood at the same time. Thus, the occultation and Mahdaviyyat of Muhammad ibn Ismail attracted the attention of many Ismailis and was widely propagated, and the beliefs of the Qarmatians were established on this belief. After a while, they converted to the Mahdaviyyat of Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanafiya for a short time and designated him along with other great prophets, as well as in the testimony in the call to prayer, as one of the messengers of God. These beliefs were met with many doubts, especially since the promise of his reappearance was not fulfilled, so after a short time the Mahdaviyyat of Muhammad ibn Ismail received serious attention and widespread acceptance by the Qarmatians. At the beginning of the fourth century, the Bahraini Qarmatians, led by Abu Tahir al-Janabi, believed in the Mahdaviyyat of Mehdi Isfahani. This belief lasted only 80 days, but its devastating effect on the beliefs of the Qarmatians was quite obvious. After some time, the Bahraini Qarmatians, like other Qaramata, returned to the Mahdaviyyat of Muhammad ibn Ismail.

This study is an attempt to represent the need assessment in Mahdavi research. This paper is organized by descriptive-analytical method, and is a qualitative research in terms of the achievement or result of research-development-applied research and in terms of the purpose of exploratory research and in terms of the type of data used. This research highlights the lack of qualitative and strategic research, the lack of a research planning model, the ambiguity in prioritization criteria, the methodological constraint on the approach to Mahdaviyyat teaching, and the context for creating theory. Research needs assessment in the field of Mahdaviyyat teachings. The results of analyzing and compiling the collected data show that "correct management of dealing with suspicions", "continuous monitoring of audience needs", "representation of undeveloped territories", "deepening the interdisciplinary approach", "distinguishing issues from problems" and "Proportion of research content to environmental conditions" is one of the important outputs in Mahdaviyyat research needs assessment. In this article, the scope and levels of research needs in the field of Mahdaviyyat doctrine are also mentioned.