ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Through a Glass Darkly V. Conclusion Earlier, I delineated the three primary roles of the Mahdi as being: rule the entire world as a Muslim; enforce a more equitable distribution of wealth, in order to fill the world with justice and equity; and restore the true shari`ah. The only one of these that all four of the movements examined herein shared was the aspiration or ideology of universal Muslim rule (as they saw it).

To that I would add a qualifier that becomes in effect the flip side of the universalism coin: all four-the Fatimids, the Muwahhids, the Sudanese and Saudi Mahdists-shared the methodology of violent jihad.

While this employment of jihad-by-the-sword may be a corruption, a misunderstanding mandated by misguided men trying (even in good faith) to do the function of the Mahdi without his status (or guidance from God), the fact remains that jihad was utilized as a methodology for advancing a universalistic Mahdist ideology.

Based on my training and experience teaching world (as well as Islamic/Middle Eastern) history at the college level in America, as well as my own research,I would submit that in the history (so far) of our planet there have only really existed three truly universalistic ideologies, two Western, one "Eastern:" Christianity Secularism (in various forms: atheistic Science/technology; socio-economic libertarianism; and most notably, Marxism/Communism) 3) Islam.

(Of course, as the historian Arnold Toynbee is said to have observed, Communism is merely a Christian heresy, an attempt to keep the social justice elements and do away with the presence of God and His activity in history.

But it is no less universalistic for that, and in fact Communism and its epigones are perhaps even more enamored of global power than the Church.) Before moving on to the ultimate conclusion of this paper, it might be worthwhile penultimately to stop and examine-or at least speculate-on the paucity of Christ claimants in Christian history who actually led militant political movements, vis-à-vis the surfeit (at least comparatively speaking) of Mahdi claimants in Islamic history who tried to, or actually did, seize power.

While a myriad of men (and some women) have claimed to be the returned Jesus Christ, the list of those who established political communities centered around that belief-either peacefully or violently-is rather small.