Mahdism serves as the key doctrine of Shia occultation theory as a whole. According to this doctrine, men will turn away from their faith and become so secularized that the Koran will be studied only as a many-coloured piece of material, and that fasting, almsgiving and other pious acts will no longer be known. Instead they will desire to obtain material objects for their own sake and pay no attention to their fathers and those before them. And so rampant will injustice and oppression be that men who remain faithful and obedient will not be able to stand up from their matresses in order to go to the mosque, and will have no recourse but to renounce human affairs and live in seclusion. Secondly, there is the association of the appearance of the Mahdi with a brief intervening Golden Age in which he will put an end to trials and the divisions of the Muslim domain in order to reconfirm the revelation of God and restore the justice of the past through the reestablishment of the original Mohammedan faith and form of government. Hence he shall reconcile the weak with the strong, and lavish his gifts upon anyone who asks—for it is told that when some companions of the Prophet became afraid of the trouble that might follow after his death, they asked him about it, and he said “ In my nation there is the Mahdi who shall come forth; he shall live five or seven or nine years; and a man shall come unto him and say, ‘O Mahdi, give me’, and the Mahdi shall pile inte his lap as much as he can carry” .
Mahdism: the Doctrine and Its Implications
