AWAITING THE MAHDI...  PEACE AT THE EYE OF THE STORM  

By: Glenn R. Jackson  

Is Islam a religion of peace? President Bush continues to 
inflict that view on the American people, but that does 
not make it necessarily true.  

Instead conservative Christian leaders are being set-up by the Bush 
Administration as hate mongers and enemies instead of theologians 
with more insight into the matters of faith then he might have.

I suppose it is easier for the Bush Administration to go with the 
flow of anti-Christian thinking in the media then it is to actually 
lead for the good of the nation. "Islam is a peaceful faith" is clearly 
hopeful pandering. Pandering, in the sense that it is intended to make 
political inroads with the Muslim community in America. Hopeful, in 
the sense that maybe 60% plus Presidential approval ratings translate 
into a two-thirds national attention deficient.  

Is Islam a religion of peace? In answering that it is instructive to 
understand how this faith began. Islam began as a warrior faith. The 
prophet Muhammad led an army to victory, and to the victor goes the 
spoils. In this case the spoils included the propagation of his message 
as doctrine and the institutionalizing of the charismatic leader as 
necessity in the Muslim world.  

Contrast this beginning with the number one most hated faith of the 
world's elites, Christianity. Jesus, rejected by the Jews because he 
did not fulfill their expectations of a conquering messiah, waited 
quietly and in prayer in a garden to be arrested. And once arrested 
he quietly stood trial before the Romans who found no threat and 
only then crucified him for his affront to the Jewish religious leaders.  

Led an army and established a faith, or waited passively in a garden, 
executed and established a faith. Two separate beginnings, but only 
one religion of peace.  

If simple beginnings are not enough to make a clear point, perhaps it is 
the endings that we should focus on. Islam is an established faith that 
has its own established Eschatology, its own view of the "end-times", 
i.e. how the world ends and the faith is proved out. The predominate 
player in Islamic Eschatology is the "Mahdi", the great religious 
leader at the head of a victorious army.

The "Mahdi" leads an Army in advance of the appearance of the Islamic 
version of Jesus (In Islam Jesus is a mortal conqueror who rules for 
40 years and then dies).

With the appearance of the Mahdi followed soon by the Islamic Jesus 
the Cross is broken and the "swine" are killed (any thoughts on who 
are considered to be the swine?), and the faithful of Islam THEN live 
in peace. Perhaps this is what President Bush is reaching for with the 
"peaceful faith" statements, but that would be too Clintonian
wouldn't it?  

No it is more likely that the President is just reciting what he is 
told, and is only showing a hopeful ignorance of Islamic eschatological 
history. That of course does not mean that the American people should 
be so hopeful, as history does tell them a more accurate and different 
tale.  

British General Charles "Chinese" Gordon was the appointed 
Governor-General of the Sudan in 1877. Gordon, a devout Christian 
was responsible for ending the Islamic practice in the Sudan of 
enslaving Blacks.a He left the Sudan, but returned in 1884 to 
confront Islamic fundamentalism and the "Mahdi".

The charismatic leader Muhammad Ahmad, an Islamic holy man had 
emerged and taken the title of the "expected one" or Mahdi. Aligned 
with the slave traders and Islamic fundamentalist, the Mahdi led a 
popular uprising to bring a pure Islamic rule to the Sudan.  

General Gordon was killed defending the besieged city of Khartoum on 
January 26th, 1885. The "Mahdi" died himself about 5 months later of 
Typhus, but not before establishing a "jihad" state, Sharia law, and 
successors who continued to run the Sudan as a "jihad" state.  

The expected appearance of the Islamic "Mahdi" is a deeply held and 
popular article of faith among Muslims even to this day. It is arguable 
that it is this expectation of the warrior Mahdi that has overwhelmed 
any source of democratic reform in the Islamic world and has worked 
instead to install tyrant after tyrant. Even in modern times the 
allure of the "Mahdi" is felt.  

In 1979 the Grand Mosque in Mecca was seized by an armed band 
of 200 men proclaiming the coming of the Mahdi and urging Islam's 
followers to rise up with them in Jihad. The Saudi's sealed off the 
country and attacked these "Mahdi" followers in the Mosque itself, 
word could not be allowed to escaped too far. Today the world finds 
itself at war with Islamic fundamentalism once again. While President 
Bush may not understand Islam very well, you can be assured that Osama 
bin Laden does.  

Whether the declaration has reached you through one of our U.S. news 
services or not you can be assured that bin Laden is making a play for 
"Mahdi." It is a fundamental article of faith among Islam's followers 
that the Mahdi will arise and he will lead his armies to victory. The 
faithful wait and watch for every sign that the Mahdi is growing in 
power. At each new sign - Bali, Kenya, Nigeria - the following grows, 
and the Mahdi's reach is extended.  

Whether bin Laden succeeds is of course not the real issue, it is that 
the faith of Islam awaits the conqueror, the expected warrior leader that 
will defeat their enemies. The Mahdi is an inviolable article of Islamic 
faith. He is sought after and is expected, and there will always be 
contenders for that title.

Unless Islam is reformed from within or contained from without, the 
peace the world will find is only the peace found at the eye of the 
storm. 

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this 
notice and hyperlink intact."  

   Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, 
   former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman 
   of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive 
   Committee of the Reform Party USA. He is a regular columnist for 
   Ether Zone.  

Glenn R. Jackson can be reached at: grjackson{at}mindspring.com  

Published in the December 17, 2002 issue of Ether Zone.

Copyright (c) 1997 - 2002 Ether Zone.

                            -==-

Source: Ether Zone - http://etherzone.com/2002/jack121702.shtml       

Cheers, Steve..

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