Messianic Movements in Contemporary Islam
Wednesday, October 15, 2008, 12:30PM
Speaker: Jean-Pierre Filiu, Visiting Professor, Georgetown University; Associate Professor, Paris Institute of Political Studies

Summary

The rise of Messianic movements in contemporary Muslim societies has attracted the attention of many scholars worldwide. Jean-Pierre Filiu, Visiting Professor at Georgetown University; Associate Professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, discussed the origin and evolution of Muslim Messianic thought and discourse. Professor Ibrahim Warde moderated the discussion.

Filiu commenced his remarks by emphasizing that Messianic thought has been deeply entrenched in Jewish religious traditions. Despite the fact that this brand of apocalyptic ideology was almost absent from the Quran, it has gained tremendous traction in the Muslim world through the Hadith and other Islamic sources. This development was influenced by the civil war that erupted between different Muslim factions during the century that followed the death of Prophet Muhammad.

The Messianic tradition in Islam borrowed heavily from both Christianity and Judaism. Similar to the two other monotheistic messianic traditions, the return of the savior at the end of times to rid the world of evil was always central to the Islamic messianic narrative. Incidentally, Islamic history is full of instances where revolutionaries and religious leaders proclaimed themselves to be that prophesied redeemer. Two notorious examples are Muhammad Ahmed al-Mahdi of Sudan and Juhayman ibn Muhammad al-Otaibi of Saudi Arabia. Muhammad al-Mahdi led a successful rebellion in the late 19^th century against colonial forces in Sudan. Juhayman al-Otaibi, on the other hand, led a group that seized the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca in 1979. Both used Messianic language and beliefs to draw public support and mobilize followers. While al-Mahdi's movement disintegrated after his death, that of al-Otaibi endured long after his death.

All in all, the Muslim public was highly receptive to Messianic ideas. Books that addressed Messianic topics were best sellers in the Muslim world. This fact did not pass unnoticed by Ruhollah Musavi al-Khomeini, who used the idea of the hidden imam and other Messianic notions to appeal to the masses and consolidate the theocratic regime in Iran and to sustain the gains of his revolution.

Because Islamic sources did not cover Messianic ideas in a comprehensive fashion, many Muslims have used Christian and Jewish sources to fill in the gaps. In the process, they imported many anti-Semitic notions that were associated Messianic thought in Christian traditions. Another consequence was that Muslim scholars reinterpreted Christian Messianic thought to accommodate it to contemporary Muslim settings.

This dynamic led to the emergence of an opportunistic discourse that is plainly anti-clerical and difficult to suppress. Messianic groups in the Muslim world, including militant ones, have used this discourse to build up legitimacy and circumvent the authority of mainstream religious establishments. The cases of Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq and Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon are indicative of this trend.

More Roundtable Events >