Beliefs

Adopted from the book: "Mahdaviyat in Hadith"

In the present times, the worldwide condition of Islam is such that, despite of its being divine and veracious (truthful) religion, it is despised by many upto the extent of enmity. The reason being false propaganda and baseless misconceptions. Same is the conditions of belief in 'Mahdaviyat' in Islamic world. And inspite of it being one of the cardinal beliefs, majority of Muslims consider it as fictitious and fabricated one. There is a group among them who either willingly or unwillingly accept this belief due to chain of narrations. But they reject those traditions which is related with the attributes and personality of Hazrat Mahdi (A.S.).

Whatsoever misunderstandings regarding the belief in 'Mahdaviyat are there, two groups of scholars are responsible for that. Firstly, if we cast a cursory glance on the history of Muslim rulers and their times we will see there were always be a group of people, who apparently by their attires and traits were scholars but in reality their beliefs and ideologies were that of an ignorant man, their behavior were sufficiently convincing of their sycophancy. They were those who at times in order to conceal falsehood and at other times to prove the government as a divine government committed every vicious and villainous deed. Let us call them as "Imitative Scholars", (Since they always imitated the shadow of falsehood). These scholars went on a spree to propagate against the belief in Mahdaviyat in several ways. Sometimes the traditions related to Mahdaviyat were regarded weak. Sometimes, they added such a phrase to be relevant and suited the Imposter Mahdi' and in this way, they shatter the very foundation of this belief. And following in the foot-steps of the same scholars, some recent scholars have rejected the fundamentals of this belief and considered it an absolutely un-Islamic belief, fabricated by Shias.

"The second group of those who reject this belief are those whose thinking have been influenced by materialistic outlook and they breath in the environment of materialism. Thus materialism had penetrated even into their beliefs. Consequently, either they reject transcendental and hidden aspects from their base, or they try to mould them into materialistic frame-work. Leave aside the aspect of Mahdaviyat, they have not even spared the belief in Revelation, Prophethood and above all : Monotheism.........................The only reason being that after accepting the materialistic ideas, it is impossible to believe in transcendental ideas. Since the belief in Mahdaviyat is also a belief in hidden concept and more over to believe that Hazrat Mahdi (a.s.) is a mortal like us and though he passes his life amongst us, he is far from our vision. Hence this belief for materialists is like adding insult to injury. Thus to relieve themselves from this belief they reject this idea outrightly and refuse to accept the existence of Hazrat Mahdi (a.s.). Subsequently, the refusal of first group increases the haughtiness of the second group.

There are innumerable replies to the doubts and baseless notions of both the aforementioned groups. And these doubts themselves are self-contradictory and inherently weak. But it is not possible for us to quote those replies over here. Interested readers may refer to the books compiled redundantly to refute the ideas of skeptics and disbeliever, only through those parameters which are accepted by consensus of Muslims Viz. 'Quran and Traditions.........And in this regard, we will also furnish proofs from some very reliable and trustworthy Ouranic exponents.............and traditionalists......... of 'Ahle-Sunnat from their very authentic books. And for the understanding of a layman we will also produce some historical evidences from history and view points of ancient Sunni scholars. So that the truth becomes manifest and explicit and righteous may be notified from them.