3/ "Eschatology, one may well say, is the air which Islam breathes.” In thought and everyday life, since its beginning, this most explicitly eschatological of world faiths and cultures fulfills a central role shaping and universalizing the planetary parousia now upon us.
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In Shiʿism, whether Zaydi, Ismaʿili, or Twelver Shiʿism (Eṯnā-ʿašari or Imami), and the extremists (ḡolāt), expectations for the Mahdi are a central part of the religious awareness. The doctrine of Occultation, and its corollary, the Manifestation (ẓohur) of the Hidden Imam in Ismaʿili and in Twelver Shiʿism are doctrinally linked to the eschatological belief in the Return (maʿād) and the Resurrection (qiāma). As a precursor to the End of the Time, the Mahdi is an inseparable part of the Shiʿite apocalyptic narrative able to transform political and social conditions and initiate cyclical renewal. He is the divine agency that brings the old revelatory cycle to its ultimate totality. In historical reality such potentiality is often translated into revolutionary aspirations to transform society’s political, social, moral, and religious order and offers one of the few perceivable means of protest against political repression, social injustice, and clerical tyranny. Encyclopædia Iranica
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The Sunni mahdi's function is to support and restore the Sunna of the community, not to transcend or destroy it. This represents a distinctive style within the broader category of Semitic and Middle Eastern messianism. Using the terms of Ernest Gellner, the Sunni mahdi is a 'fusion of a cult of the Book with a cult... of Leadership' which stays within the bounds set by the tradition and scriptural religion. In a Sunni mahdist movement it is the spiritual leadership that provides articulation for the Book, which is the 'trans-social standard which judges the social.' Seen in this light Sunni mahdism is a special leadership style. John Voll
@RichardRohrOFM In reality, it didn't take long at all for 'the Church' to effectively forsake messianic ontology for a religious science of containment. No matter. The involvement of God in history isn't a concept: no religion or system can own the visible and carnal presence of the God-force.
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