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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Faith and Reason Question 27: The qualities of human society after the re-appearance of Imam al-Mahdi – the state of Justice, oppression, poverty and sin Question: After the reappearance of Imam Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance), how long will it take before the rule of justice [becomes universal]? Will any poor person or tyrant remain? If no, then does that mean that no sin will ever be committed again?

Is it correct that he will be martyred at the hands of a bearded old woman? How does such a crime take place despite the Imam’s uprooting of oppression? What the narrations yield in this regard is that war will be waged for over a period of eight months, after which time all the various countries will fall under his reign, the rule of justice will be established worldwide, and disbelief, polytheism, and hypocrisy will be entirely uprooted.

Hence, no tyrant will remain in power over any society, and the main incentives of sin, particularly social misdeeds, will be eradicated. The earth will yield its treasures of mineral deposits and crops will flourish; the share of the poor will be exacted from the oppressors and the rich and it will be distributed among the poor to such an extent that there will be no need for charity and alms, for all will be affluent and well off.

Brief Answer Detailed Answer Belief in the reappearance of Imam Zaman (ع) is an instance of belief in the unseen realities, those realities which cannot be accepted and whose qualities cannot be apprehended by any other means but faith and through a study of the corpus of authentic narrations.

But since most of the ahadith and narrations have through time undergone corrosion as the result of various factors—such as, taqiyyah (dissimulation) on the part of the Shi’ites, fabrication and distortion of narrations by the enemies of the Shi’ites, neglect of or the lack of attention in recording the narrations on the part of the transmitters, and absence of adequate facilities for publication and preservation of the texts—a detailed understanding of the events prior to and following the reappearance of Imam Zaman (ع), as desired by the truth-seeking Shi’ite, is not feasible.

This becomes especially difficult when faced with some of the contradictions in the related narrations that are not reconcilable. Hence, the reply to the aforementioned question—particularly the first part—is [to a great extent] conjectural.