Summary Article: The Future and its Relation to Imam Al-Mahdi (PBUH)
Professor Amer Abd Zaid Al-Waely (Ph.D.)
This study tends to investigate the future and its relation to Imam Al-Mahdi strategically from a theological point of view. Thus, this topic is theologically encountered through the philosophy of history. In other words, the future is read through the philosophy of history and how history may contribute to the formation of future.
This study takes the form of religious exegesis of history and its teleological destination by means of relating the future to the history, represented through a set of Hadiths narrated from the Prophet and Ahlulbait (PBUT) and how they designated a specific point in the future of history, regarding the promised savior.
The discourse of future, represented in Mahdism, is a theological utopian discourse that aims at changing the miserable condition of the world, its poverty, mass destruction, and identity crisis, through presenting an alternative version of government.