Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Return of the Madhi

In the early Seventies when I first read the scfi novel Dune, there was not much knowledge of Islam or the Shiah in my neck of the woods. Over the years since, the terminology of Dune has become progressively more prominent.
Now the President of Iran works and prays for the Raj'a [return] of the Mahdi, Muhammad al-Madhi, the 'hidden one', the Twelfth Imam. This is apocalypse, Shia style. Meanwhile the most radical insist the world must be cleansed with blood to prepare his return. Interesting how Frank Herbert based his sci-fi mythology on this.

Role of Hidden Imam

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