Muhammad al-Mahdi in the context of "Imams"

Hasan al-Askari (Arabic: الحَسَن بْن عَلِيّ ٱلْعَسْكَرِيّ, romanized: al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī; c. 844–874) was a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He is regarded as the eleventh of the Twelve Imams, succeeding his father, Ali al-Hadi. Hasan Al-Askari was born in Medina in 844 and brought with his father to the garrison town of Samarra in 848, where the Abbasid caliphs held them under close surveillance until their deaths, even though neither were politically active. After the death of al-Hadi in 868, the majority of his following acknowledged his son, al-Askari, as their next Imam. Al-Askari's contact with the Shia population was restricted by the caliphs and instead, he communicated with his followers through a network of representatives. He died in Samarra in 873–874 at the age of about twenty-eight and was buried in the family home next to his father, which later developed into al-Askari shrine, a major center for Shia pilgrimage. Shia sources commonly hold the Abbasids responsible for the death of al-Askari and his father. A well-known early Shia commentary of the Quran is attributed to al-Askari.

Al-Askari died without leaving an obvious heir, which created widespread confusion and fragmented the Shia community into several sects, all of which disappeared within a few decades except the Twelver Shia. The Twelvers hold that al-Askari had a son, commonly known as Muhammad al-Mahdi (lit. 'the rightly guided'), who was kept hidden from the public out of the fear of Abbasid persecution. Al-Mahdi succeeded to the imamate after the death of his father and entered a state of occultation. His life is said to be miraculously prolonged until the day he manifests himself again by God's permission to fill the earth with justice. Though in occultation, the Imam still remains responsible in Twelver belief for the spiritual guidance of humankind and the Shia accounts of his occasional encounters with the pious are numerous and popular.
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The Mahdi (Arabic: ٱلْمَهْدِيّ, romanized: al-Mahdī, lit. 'the Guided'), also Masih al-Mahdi (Arabic: المسيح المهدي, romanized: al-Masīḥ al-Mahdī, lit. 'the Guided Redeemer'), is a messianic figure in Islamic belief. He is comparable to the Christian idea of the return of Jesus and the Mashiach ben David in Judaism. He is believed to appear at the End of Times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad and will appear shortly before Jesus.

The Mahdi is mentioned in several compilations of hadith, but absent from the Quran and the two most-revered Sunni hadith collections (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). As such, he plays only a marginal role in Sunni Islam and some Sunni theologians have rejected the concept of the Mahdi altogether. However, the Mahdi plays a significant role among Twelver Shias, who believe that the Mahdi is Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Imam, son of the eleventh Imam Hasan al-Askari (d. 874), who is said to be in occultation (ghayba) by divine will.

The hadith of the twelve successors (Arabic: حَدِيْث ٱلْإِثْنَي عَشَر خَلِيْفَة, romanized: ḥadīth al-ithnā ʿashar khalīfa) is a widely-reported prophecy, attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, predicting that there would be twelve successors after him. As there were many more rulers after Muhammad, Sunni authors have variously identified these twelve successors with some of these rulers. In Twelver Shia, these successors are instead identified with their Twelve Imams. Their last imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is believed to miraculously remain in occultation since 874 CE, and is expected to return in the end of times to eradicate injustice and evil.

Occultation (Arabic: غيبة, ghayba) in Shia Islam refers to the eschatological belief that the Mahdi, a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, has already been born and he was subsequently concealed, but he will reemerge and he will establish justice and peace on earth at the end of time. The signs of his (re)appearance are largely common in Shia and Sunni (although Sunni do not believe the Mahdi has already been born and is in occultation),and the belief in the eschatological Mahdi remains popular among all Muslims, possibly owing to numerous traditions to this effect in canonical Sunni and Shia sources.

However, the branches of Shia Islam that believe in it differ with regard to the identity of the Mahdi. The mainstream Shia identifies him as Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth imam, who is believed to be responsible for the affairs of men and, in particular, their inward spiritual guidance during the occultation.

Imam (/ɪˈmɑːm/; Arabic: إمام, imām; pl.: أئمة, a'immah) is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, and provide religious guidance. Thus for Sunnis, anyone can study the basic Islamic teachings and become an imam. Its Christian equivalent/counterpart is a pastor or a priest.

For most Shia Muslims, the imams are absolute infallible leaders of the Islamic community after the Prophet. Shias consider the term to be only applicable to the members and descendants of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In Twelver Shi'ism there are 14 infallibles, 12 of which are imams, the final being Imam Mahdi who will return at the end of times. The title was also used by the Zaidi Shia imams of Yemen, who eventually founded the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (1918–1970).

The Safavid order (Persian: طریقت صفویه) also called the Safaviyya (Persian: صفویه) was a Sufi order (tariqa) founded by the mystic Zahed Gilani and named after his son-in-law and successor Safi al-Din Ardabili (1252–1334 AD). It held a prominent place in the society and politics of northwestern Iran in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but today it is best known for having given rise to the Safavid dynasty.

Starting in the early 1300s, the leaders of the Safavid movement clearly showed that they wanted political power as well as religious authority. This ambition made the rulers of western Iran and Iraq first feel uneasy, and later, they became openly hostile. Even though three Safavid leaders in a row (Junayd in 1460, Heydar in 1488, and Ali in 1494) were killed in battle, the movement was still strong enough to succeed and lead to the founding of the Safavid dynasty in 1501. The Safavid kings based their authority on three core beliefs: that they were divinely appointed to rule Iran, that they acted as the earthly representatives of the Muhammad al-Mahdi—the Twelfth Imam in Twelver Shi‘ism who is expected to return and bring about a just and peaceful world—and that they served as the moršed-e kāmel, or perfect spiritual guide, of the Safavid Sufi order. However, in the period just before the Safavid state was officially founded, their religious propaganda, known as da‘va, went beyond these claims. It asserted that the Safavid leader was not simply the Mahdi’s representative, but the Mahdi himself—or even a divine incarnation.

Rajʿa (Arabic: رجعة, lit. 'return'), also known as ḥashr khāṣṣ (lit. 'specific resurrection'), is a doctrine in Shia Islam positing that some of the dead will return to life before the Resurrection to avenge their oppression.

In Twelver Shia doctrine, the concept of rajʿa is closely intertwined with the eschatological concept of occultation (ghayba) and the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi in the end times to establish peace and justice on earth. This doctrine, which was elaborated in the early 10th century by the then emerging Twelver sect, goes back on earlier ideas developed by early Shia sects such as the late 7th-century Kaysāniyya and the early 9th-century Wāqifiyya, who denied the deaths of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya (died 700) and Musa al-Kazim (died 799) and awaited their return. The doctrine was also current among the 8th/9th-century Shias known as ghulāt (lit. 'exaggerators'), whose elaboration of the idea may have influenced early Twelver scholars.

The Minor Occultation (Arabic: الغيبة الصغرى, al-Ghayba al-Ṣughrā), also known as the First Occultation (Arabic: الغيبة الأولى, al-Ghayba al-Ūlā), refers in Twelver Shia Islam to a period of nearly seventy years (874–941 CE, 260–329 AH) during which the Hidden Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is believed to have communicated regularly with his followers through four successive agents. This period was followed by the Major Occultation (941–present), where there is no agent of the Hidden Imam, whose reappearance is expected by the Twelvers to fill the earth with justice and peace in the end of time.

Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man ibn 'Abd al-Salam al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi (Arabic: أَبُو عَبْدِ ٱللّٰهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ بْنِ ٱلنُّعْمَانِ بْنِ عَبْدِ ٱلسَّلَامِ ٱلْحَارِثِيُّ ٱلْعُكْبَرِيُّ ٱلْبَغْدَادِيُّ), known as al-Shaykh al-Mufid (Arabic: الشیخ المفید) and Ibn al-Mu'allim (c. 948–1022 CE), was a prominent Twelver Shia Muslim scholar, jurist (faqīh) and theologian of Iraqi descent. His father was a teacher (mu'allim), hence his nickname Ibn al-Mu'allim ("son of the teacher"). The title "al-Mufid" ("the beneficient [one]") was given to him either by Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Shia Imam, or by al-Rummani, a Mu'tazilite scholar, after a discussion with him. The leader of the Shia community at his time, he was a staunch mutakallim, theologian, and jurist.

He studied and was taught by the prominent Shia scholars al-Shaykh al-Saduq amd Ibn Qulawayh, as well as Mutazilite scholars Abu al-Husayn al-Basri and al-Rummani. His students included Sharif al-Murtaza and Shaykh Tusi, both of whom became important scholars in their own right. Only 10 of his 200 works have survived, among which are Amali, Al-Irshad, Al-Muqni'ah, and Tashih al-Itiqadat.

In the context of political thought or politics and the religion of Islam, political quietism has been used to refer to the religiously-motivated withdrawal from political affairs. It is in contrast to political Islam, which holds that the Islamic religion and politics are inseparable, and Muslims should be fighting to establish true Islamic government.

Motivations include the belief that it is not for Muslim public to question authorities and that they should instead focus on piety, prayer, religious rituals and personal virtue; skepticism that mere mortals can establish a true Islamic government.Quietism may also be temporary, such as the belief that it is "forbidden to rebel against a [Muslim] ruler", or even become involved in political factions, as this would cause disunity in the community, but that at the right time in the future, when (depending on the sect of Muslim), a consensus of Islamic scholars (in Sunni Islam), or the twelfth imam (in Twelver Shia Islam) call for it, all Muslims should support a true Islamic government. (The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and Salafis are sometimes described as having "quietist" and "radical" wings.)

ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd alʾAsadī al-ʿAmrī (Arabic: عثمان بن سعيد الأسدي العمري) was the first of the Four Deputies, whom Twelver Shia Muslims believe have successively represented their twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, during his Minor Occultation (874–941 CE). Uthman is also said to have been a trusted representative (wakīl or safīr or bāb) of the tenth and eleventh Imams Ali al-Hadi (835–868) and Hasan al-Askari (868–874) respectively. The date of his death is not certain, but most Shia scholars agree that it was in 880-81.

In Islam, khums (Arabic: خُمْس [xums]) is a tax on Muslims which obligates them to pay one-fifth (20%) of their acquired wealth from the spoils of war and, according to most Muslim jurists, other specified types of income, towards various designated beneficiaries. In Islamic legal terminology, "spoils of war" (al-ghanima) refers to property and wealth looted by the Muslim army after battling with non-Muslims or raiding them. Khums is the first Islamic tax, which was imposed in 2 AH/624 CE, after the Battle of Badr. It is separate from other Islamic taxes such as zakat and jizya. It is treated differently in Sunni and Shia Islam; key topics of debate include the types of wealth subject to khums, the methods of its collection and distribution, and the categories of recipients (asnāf).

Historically, one-fifth of the spoils of war (i.e., the khums) was placed at the disposal of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who distributed it among himself, his close relatives, orphans, the needy and travelers (the remaining four-fifth of the spoils went to soldiers of the Muslim army who attacked the non-Muslims). After Muhammad's death, disagreement arose about how to use the share once given to Muhammad and whether to continue to give his close relatives a share of the khums. Over time, Sunni Muslims came to believe that khums should be paid to the ruler of the Islamic state for the general good of the Muslims, maintaining the Muslim army, and for distribution between the orphans, the needy, travelers, and, according to some jurists, the descendants of Muhammad. For the Shia, the khums must be paid to the Imam of the time, as the rightful heir of Muhammad, who then distributes it among the orphans, the needy, the travelers and other descendants of Muhammad. As Twelver Shi'is believe the Imam of the time is currently in Occultation (ghayba), they pay khums to senior religious scholars (mujtahids) of their choice, who are considered representatives of this Hidden Imam, and these jurists then divide the khums into two portions: one for distribution among the indigent descendants of Muhammad and the other for any activities that they believe will be agreeable to the Hidden Imam.