Mahdi

From Arabic مَهْدِيّ (mahdiyy, “guided one”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɑːdi/
• Rhymes: -ɑːdi

Mahdi

1. (Sunni Islam) A leader who, according to Sunni eschatology, will appear and restore peace and justice before the end of the world. [from 17th c.]

   Ahmadis consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmed to be the Mahdi.

   • 1965, Frank Herbert, Dune‎ (Fiction), →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 100–101:

     "Of course, my Lord. You asked what they were shouting, though. It was Mahdi! They directed the term at the young master. When they-"
     "At Paul?"
     "Yes, my Lord. They've a legend here, a prophecy, that a leader will come to them, a child of a Bene Gesserit, to lead them to true freedom. It follows the familiar messiah pattern."

   • 2012, Piers Brendon, ‘Beginning the Dissent’, Literary Review, volume 401:

     Al-Afghani was a polyglot Persian who became an international agitator, aspiring [...] to unify the Muslim masses behind the Caliph (or even the Mahdi) and to become himself the Luther of an Islamic reformation.

2. (Twelver Shiite Islam) Muhammad b. Hasan al-Mahdi, the last of the Twelve Imams, born in 868 AD but believed alive and present in this world in a state of occultation; officially the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?); similarly to Sunni belief he will reappear before the end of time.

• Mahdism
• Mahdist
• Messiah

• Dhami, Hamid