Prophecy in Islam:  The Promised Qa’im

            The claim of finality in Islam is fundamental to contemporary Muslim belief.
Since its early history, when Muslim sects or other groups have expressed a belief in
the reformation or renewal of Islam, they have often been met with persecution.  At the core of this issue are differences in the interpretation of Prophecy, and for an insight into this discussion, we will look at prophecies related to "The Promised Qa’im".
            According to most of the Muslim world, Muhammad was the last Prophet in a succession of Prophets sent by God to humanity, and Islam is God’s final religion.  One of the many references that support this claim is that Muhammad is “the Messenger of God, and the Seal of the Prophets” (Qur’án 33:40).  Other passages of Muhammad state that: “there will be no prophet after me” (Concordance 6:335).  Yet different scriptures have led Muslims to await the coming of an Age where the “Great Announcement” would occur, (Qur’an 38:67, 78:2) on a prophesized “Day of God” (Qur’an 14:5, 30:43, 45:14).  The Qur’an refers to this as “The Day when God will come down overshadowed with clouds,” (2:210) “The Day when thy Lord shall come and the angels rank on rank,” (89:22) “The Day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the world,” (83:6)  This “Day of God” has been interpreted to mean a period where humanity would witness the coming of a revelation of God, an idea that is contrary to the finality of Islam.
            As a result of this and other prophecies, during the first half of the Nineteenth Century, millennial fervor gripped many peoples throughout the world.  Christians awaited the return of Christ:  the German Templars settled in Israel in 1868 to await the coming of the Messiah.  A wave of expectation swept through Islam that the "Lord of the Age" would appear.  Both Christians and Muslims believed that with the fulfillment of the prophecies in their scriptures, a new spiritual age was to begin.
            In Islam, the movement of Twelver Shi’ism seemed to have the most significant claims.  The Shi’is followed the Imams, who were divinely appointed guides in religious matters, successors of Muhammad.  All the Imams were believed to have been killed by their enemies except for the twelfth:  Imam XII, Muhammad b. Hasan, who disappeared as a child, and whom God has kept in a state of “occultation”, until his promised return.  Twelver doctrine was elaborated in Shi’i Persia, in the 900’s to state:  “We believe that the Proof of God in his earth…in this age of ours is the Upholder (al-Qa’im), The Expected One…the Twelfth Imam.  It is he concerning whose name and descent the Prophet was informed by God, and it is he who will fill the earth with justice and equity just as it is now full of oppression and wrong…  He is the rightly guided Mahdi about whom the Prophet gave information that when he appears, Jesus Son of Mary will descend upon the earth and pray behind him.” (Williams 194)
            Amidst a wide-scale breakdown of Persian society in the 1840’s, the climax of this messianic following began to center around an influential theologian named Shaykh Ahmad and his disciple Siyyid Kazim, who interpreted the Qur’an allegorically rather than literally.  They proclaimed that the return of the Twelfth Imam, the appointed deliverer and successor of Muhammad, was imminent.  Before Siyyid Kázim died in 1843, he urged his disciples to scatter in search of the Promised One who would shortly be revealed. He pointed out that the year, according to the Islamic calendar, was 1260 A.H. (1844 A.D.), or exactly one thousand lunar years since the disappearance of the Hidden Imam.
            For one of the leading followers of Shaykh Ahmad, a man called Mullá Husayn, the search ended in the city of Shiraz on May 23, 1844, when he encountered a young man named Siyyid `Alí-Muhammad, who announced that He was the Promised One whom Shaykh Ahmad and his believers were seeking.  In the document entitled Qayyúmu'l-Asmá', which Siyyid began that same night, its author is identified as a Messenger of God, in the line of Jesus, Muhammad, and those who had preceded them.  Subsequently, Siyyid `Alí-Muhammad also referred to Himself by the traditional Muslim title "Báb" (Gate), and became the founder of the Babí Faith.  The central theme of the Báb’s writings was the imminent appearance of a second Messenger from God, one Who would be far greater than the Báb, and Whose mission would be to usher in the age of peace and justice promised in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
            After the persecution of Babís and the execution of the Báb in 1850, a Persian nobleman known as Bahá’u’lláh, while imprisoned in the “Black Pit” of Tehran, was said to have received a vision of God’s will to humanity.  He set in motion another process of religious revelation which was to complete the Báb’s revelation, and over the next 40 years, led to the production of thousands of books, tablets and letters which today form the core of the sacred scripture of Bahá'í Faith.  In His writings, Bahá’u’lláh outlined a framework for the reconstruction of human society at all levels: spiritual, moral, economic, political, and philosophical.
            A major theme in the Bahá’í writings that contributes to our discussion of the finality of Islam is Progressive Revelation. Bahá’u’lláh taught that Manifestations of God have appeared at intervals throughout history to found the world’s great religions.  All the Manifestations, including Abraham, Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, The Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, are indeed of the same station, and their revelations only differed according to the capacity of humanity to understand the Word of God.  In relation to the designation of “Prophet”, Muhammad is seen to have “sealed” a cycle of Manifestations called the Prophetic Cycle, and the Báb initiated the Cycle of Fulfillment, whereby Manifestations are not referred to as Prophets.  “This Day,” claimed Bahá’u’lláh, “is unique, and is to be distinguished from those that have preceded it. [Mohammad’s] designation ‘Seal of the Prophets’ fully revealeth its high station.  The Prophetic Cycle hath, verily, ended. The Eternal Truth is now come.” (Gleanings 60)
            The question of finality can thus be reconciled with the prophecies about the Promised Qaim, and the Babí and Bahá’í Faith clarify the manner in which Muhammad can be seen as the last Prophet, but not the last in a continuing series of Manifestations of God.

 

Works Consulted
1.  `Alí, A. Yusuf. The Holy Qur'án; text, translation, and commentary. Rev. ed. Brentwood, MA: Amana Corp., 1989.
2.  Bahá'u'lláh. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh. Trans. Shoghi Effendi. Rev. ed. Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1976.
3.  Bijlefeld, W. A. "A Prophet and more than a Prophet", The Muslim World 59.1 (1969):1-28.
4.  Cole, J. R. I. "The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá'í Writings", Bahá'í Studies 9. Ottawa: Association for Bahá'í Studies, 1982.
5.  Denny, Frederick M.  Islam and the Muslim Community.  Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, IL:  1987.
6.  Sachedina, A. A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of Mahdi in Twelver Shi`ism. Albany: State Universoty of New York Press, 19481.
7.  The Bahá’í World:  Official Site of the Bahá’í Faith. http://www.bahai.org/  Copyright 2003.8.  Williams, John Alden.  The Word of Islam.  University of Texas Press, Austin, TX:  1994.

 

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