The End Times: Islam vs. the Bible, Part 3: Who Is the Mahdi?

The End Times: Islam vs. the Bible, Part 3: Who Is the Mahdi?
Friday, June 6, 2025 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare / The church / Thought for Today

Who is the Mahdi? For those outside Islam, the Mahdi tends to be an obscure figure. Even within Islam there is a major disagreement about his identity.

Both Sunnis and Shias believe that the Mahdi will be a great leader, will bring about world peace through establishing the universal caliphate (the worldwide religious and political rule of Islam), and bring in a time of great prosperity. Where Sunnis and Shias differ, is in the Mahdi’s identity.

For Sunnis, the specific identity of the Mahdi is not known. Other than the Mahdi being a direct descendent of Muhammad, little is known about his personal identity. In terms of the number of hadiths, the focus appears to be more on Eesa (see the next post). The Sunnis look to the sunnah—the established customs of the community of Islam—for answers, hence their name. It is also why they particularly value what they consider the authenticated hadiths, particularly the hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim (a student of Bukhari).

For Shias, of whom 80%–90% are “twelver” Shias, the situation is quite different. While Shias have their own hadith tradition, their focus is on their twelve imams. These imams, all direct descendants of Muhammad, lived throughout the first centuries of Islam. The imams are the ones who lead and guide, who keep the religion. Islam is in the hands of the imams, not the “sunnah.”

The first eleven of Shia’s twelve imams were all assassinated, many by Sunni Umayyad or Abbasid caliphs, but also by splinter sects, and in one case, a family member. The sole exception was the twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, born in 869. To escape assassination, Shiites insist that he went into occultation.

He did so twice. The first one, the minor occultation, lasted from 874–941. During that time four successive deputies were able to make spiritual contact with him, and serve as intermediaries. The second occultation, the major occultation, started with the death of the fourth deputy, in 941, and continues to the present day. Occultation means: to be concealed, to be alive but hidden, from humanity. He will be revealed once more to humanity when Allah so decrees. Shiites justify their belief in part by citing that Allah has kept Eesa alive even longer, ever since he was taken up into heaven without being crucified.

From a biblical perspective, one cannot but help notice the word “occultation.” For now, we will leave it at that. Later, we will delve into how what the Mahdi will do could relate to what the Bible has to say about the end times.

The Sunnis ridicule the Shiite belief about the Mahdi. For example ‘Arif (“Al-Mahdi and the End of Time,” page 16) states about the Shia: “This position is not tenable because it is based on suppositions and delusions.” Historically, Sunnis have often viewed Shiites as heretics and apostates, thus serving as a justification for slaughtering them. In recent times, both the Taliban and ISIS have murdered many Shiites.

For our purposes, whether Sunnis or Shias are correct about the identity of the Mahdi is not important. The bigger picture of who he is and what he does, is what matters.

In the next post, we will look at the identity of Eesa (also Issa or Isa), the Islamic version of Jesus.

Share This Blog: