 Salamu Alaykum, welcome to Islam in Focus. Be sure to catch us Saturdays from 10am to 10.30 on the following networks. Roger's Channel 129, Bell Express View Channel 217, and Star Choice Channel 348. Today we have with us Sheikh Hussein Rajbali from Dearborn, Michigan. He is a visiting lecturer and has lectured in several centers. He also has participated in several interfaith gatherings around the world. Welcome back to the show Sheikh Hussein. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. For this segment, I would like to discuss the 12th Imam. And to start us off, I would like to ask, who is the Mahdi? And do other faiths believe in him or believe in something similar? Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. The Mahdi is a title that's given to the one who is the guide, the one who protects the interests of the believers. And it is a concept that is generally believed among all religions in some way or form or shape. Especially the notion of the messianic notion of the coming of a redeemer who is going to bring justice and peace on earth, is a universal principle accepted by most religions, most major religions. So we believe in him obviously as the 12th Imam, as the one who is in occultation, alive among us, and he is God's representative on earth. Now, one might say, well, this is an unusual concept, considering that yes, there is the Mahdi concept, but how is it that he has been alive for 1200 plus years? This is very unusual compared to other religions. And the Jafari school of thought particularly adheres to this notion, hence they are known as the Ithna Ashari, the believers in the 12th Imams, is clear because the Messenger of Allah assigned that by the command of Allah. And this is not a secret even in other schools of thought that the Prophet said, after me there will be 12 Khalifahs over you, and it is in continuity with that. So Allah assigned 12 reflections of the Holy Prophet, the Imams, and each one within their period of time explained what the Messenger taught us. So the job of the Imams is to protect the city of knowledge. Hence the famous Hadith of the Prophet where he says, I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate. That gate is the protector, the one who guides and the one who directs people as to how to extract from the city of knowledge. So hence Imamat is a continuation of the Prophet, though there is no Nubuwah after that, meaning when the Messenger completed his message, when he left this world he was the last prophet, the sealer of prophets, and there are no more prophets after him. But it is logical that since the Prophet came and for 40 years he was silent as a prophet and then he declared his prophethood at the age of 40 and he had 23 years to distribute the message, the final message. And remember, very important, Islam did not start 14 centuries ago, Islam was completed as a religion 14 centuries ago. Islam started with Adam as the first prophet and the prophets received the revelations over time and the Holy Prophet was the one who completed the message. Now within that span of 23 years to impart a complete religion and to change the mentality of the people who are mostly pagans, who are believers in idols, and to change their lifestyles and to complete them with the favor of Allah swt in the religion of Islam, 23 years, if you really do the math, is a very short period of time. And now taking into consideration of the 23 years, 13 years of that, the Holy Prophet was subjected to oppression in Makkah. He wasn't really given the freedom to express. So he had a very small group of followers. So that's 13 years ago. You left with 10 years. Of the 10 years, roughly 8 years he was defending Islam because the enemies kept attacking him. So whenever after he moved to Medina, the enemies from Makkah and other regions kept attacking him. So those attacks kept coming and he was defending them. Hence he had to go on the battlefields and defend. Which leaves roughly 2 to 3 years of peaceful time. Now the final religion coming onto mankind through this, the greatest human being who is the Holy Prophet SAW, to give him a period of 3 to 4 years, let's say maximum, let's say even if you take all the free periods, it's nothing to explain and to express this message of Islam to the people and to understand the diversity of how to approach the law. And Allah's wisdom through this is that when the messenger left at the age of 63, the imams came into play where now they are a reflection, a pure reflection of the Holy Prophet. Their knowledge base is similar to the Prophet and they reflected the Prophet. So when people ask them questions they would say exactly what the Prophet intended within that time. So we know our imams up to the 12th imam in the sense of his birth was roughly 250 years plus or minus. Actually it's 250 years plus. So 250 years of a period of reflection makes more sense where you have a Prophet being reflected to describe and express and teach the people the message over a span of 250 years. Hence the 12 imams. Now when our 12th imam came into play, it came into this world and as an imam you find that the Abbasid Caliphate was very, very staunchly afraid of this Mahdi because they knew historically the Prophet said that my grandson who shall have my name, as you know his name is Muhammad also, Ibn Al-Hasan. So you find that he will establish justice and he will break the shackles of dictators and oppressors. So the Abbasid Caliphate was afraid of that because they knew that the Mahdi will straighten them out from their evils and therefore they wanted to beat him to the punch to kill him and hence you find that the imam went into hiding at a very young age. And he went into occultation. And there was a minor occultation and then there was a major occultation and that occultation was Allah's decree. Now someone may ask why is the imam under occultation under these long periods of time? Well Allah SWT always keeps his representative on earth, even if you can't see them. Just like Shaytan Iblis is the antithesis of good upon us and Allah warns us of his evil machineries and evil thoughts but we can't see him. By the same token Allah is balanced, he's just that there's always a Khalifa on earth and that's really the Mahdi according to our perceptions. What are some of the signs of his reappearance? Are any of them occurring at the moment? Well there are many signs and unfortunately there are some signs that you really can't validate but in the general sense we know of what will happen and it's all interpretive. There are those who interpret signs in various ways but one of the clear signs is that oppression will reign. There will be a lot of oppression, a lot of death taking place, a lot of injustice will be taking place and if we examine the world today it is indeed the case. There's a lot of oppression taking place today especially among those who follow the ways of Ahlul Bayt particularly in countries like Bahrain for example you find the world is turning a blind eye to their cause because of political reasons and unfortunately so many lives are being lost, so many women are being abused that unfortunately that's the reality. So one of the signs is that there will be a lot of oppression in the world, a lot of deaths taking place, earthquakes will be taking place, floods will be taking place and everything that's happening now in Japan is a good example. You find even in Indonesia recently that took place all the tsunamis that hit that part of the region, the earthquakes in Iran, the earthquakes in China, the earthquakes in Japan, you're noticing tremendous amount of deaths taking place. So that's those natural disasters taking place and at the same time the battles and the wars that are taking place, the invasions of invading armies causing all kinds of horrible deaths among people, poverty, it's at an alarming rate, the richer getting richer, the poorer getting poorer, the divide is getting wider. All of these are signs of the reappearance of Imam Mahdi alaihi s.a. You talked about his occultation, how he went into hiding, when did the minor occultation occur and when did the major occultation occur? Well he was at the age of five, 255 AH, the occultation and then you find that roughly 60, 70 years later there was the major occultation that took place and the minor occultation was that he was in communication with four representatives on earth which he appointed, two of them were actually father and son and there were just four people who were the direct representatives of Imam who essentially became the means by which the people would communicate with Imam, that was the minor occultation and then the major one there were no representatives thereafter and the major occultation has taken place since then so roughly, you know, if you want to do the math, it would be roughly 1200 years of major occultation. So the occultation of course has principles and meaning behind it but the Imam was showing us how to be independent in each tihad and that we as a group of believers and even Surah Al-Bara'at Allah mentions that a few of you should go and learn and study the law and come back and guide others. This is a commandment in the Quran and this is really where the true principles of each tihad start to take formation and it flowers over time. So this is why we have our Maraji for example who represent leadership in the levels of each tihad and that became possible after the occultation and the Imam, our Imam, present Imam showed them the guidelines, the basic guidelines and each tihad of course is the process of learning and studying the law from the Quran and from the Prophet Sunnah and of course the reflection of Ahlul Bayt as to what did the Ahlul Bayt say regarding what the Prophet said regarding what the Quran says. One of the conditions of his reappearance is that people have to sincerely pray for him to come and they have to connect with him. In this day and age our schedules are so busy and everything is just... we just don't have that much time to do it so how can we make sure that we make time for this noble cause? Well regardless of his reappearance or not one should sincerely pray to God. I mean that's an obvious scenario even if the Imam was present among us no one can say that we should not be sincere in prayers. Allah even addresses the importance of sincerity of prayers that even those who reject Allah when they are in a state of difficulty particularly about to die you find that they will pray to Allah sincerely. Allah says When the waves are covering them and they are about to drown Allah says they call on their Lord sincerely. But when we bring them back to shore they take the middle ground like as if they had no problems and they reject Allah's signs. So we all need to pray to Allah sincerely and we need to pray to Allah sincerely and we need to pray to Allah sincerely and we need to pray to Allah sincerely so we all need to pray sincerely whether the Imam is going to repeat or not and I don't think that is a condition for the reappearance of our Blessed Imam. I don't believe so. We say that and it's a good thing to say but I don't think that's a condition. The real condition is when Allah decrees it that's the condition. None of us can create that condition. Our condition in this world is to change the affairs of our society for the better. Allah says Allah does not change the affairs of a community until the community changes themselves first. So that's a requirement regardless of when the Imam is going to reappear. And on Judgment Day if we don't participate in bringing harmony within the society we will be liable even if the Imam didn't show up in our lifetime. But we need to make an effort to prepare the way for the Imam and that means to establish justice and equity when the Imam appears we will join him readily because we will already in motion we will be in motion to be doing the good things. We won't just be sitting around waiting for his instructions. We will have already started and he will join in and sort of be the catalyst to take us into higher stages of existence. So we all need to prepare ourselves for the Imam. We don't know when the Imam will reappear. No one knows. Allah says To Allah is the knowledge of time. The day of judgment is Allah's. The reappearance of the Imam is Allah's strict knowledge. We do know the signs and we see what's happening in the Middle East today North Africa especially. We see that these are signs and they are very unusual signs that haven't happened historically. And it's happening so rapidly especially with the computer age that we live in that knowledge is being imparted information is exchanging hands at millisecond levels which is unusual. It's never happened before in history. So we are pretty confident that something is around the corner but it would be foolish for anyone to say for sure it is around the corner because that would imply knowledge of something that we don't have knowledge of. We can say that probably probability-wise there's a higher chance of his reappearance. And one might say well what if the Imam doesn't show up? The argument is simple. Even if he doesn't show up for a thousand more years or a million more years it's irrelevant. The relevancy is in the Intadar as the Prophet said he says افضل العبادة انتظار المحدي one of the most supreme forms of عبادة is انتظار of the محدي to have this desire for the representative of Allah because he is a means by which we remember Allah and Allah mentions that in the Quran the شفعة the representatives are the means to Allah so when you're waiting for them you want to remember them that's part of عبادة just like no Muslim can claim to be a Muslim without remembering the Prophet. The Holy Prophet is a means to Allah. I cannot claim to be a Muslim by saying there is no God but one and if I don't say that the Holy Prophet is the sealer of prophets in the last messenger if I don't say اشهدون محمد الرسول الله I'm not a Muslim. So by the same talking انتظار المحدي is on the same line that that reflection of the Prophet within our time is essential and we have to remember the Mahdi. So our انتظار of the Imam should therefore make us to submit to Allah properly to hold on to prayers to keep our prayers to give charity to forgive people to be just not to lie in cheat and to take account before Allah takes our account that's a moral individual a good human being and that to me I think is pivotal in why all these hadith are like the way they are. Some people think okay when the Imam is about ready to come I'm going to shape up and I say that's foolish you don't know when the Imam is going to show up he's just like somebody says when Malakul Mot comes to my house to take my soul I'll shape up well no one knows when Malakul Mot is going to catch you he may catch you in the middle of the highway while you're driving while you're sleeping there's no guarantees to when you'll be caught so why not prepare before you get caught the same with Imam Mahdi when people ask me what should I do to prepare for Imam Mahdi I always tell them prepare for Malakul Mot if you can prepare for the Angel of Death you're ready for Imam Mahdi what state will this world be in before his reappearance? a terrible state as we know the world the injustice will be they're taking look at the world today look at the amount of injustice it's mind boggling how humans are being used as slaves and they're just being steamrolled only because of some political powers and some people who want power that's all it's mind boggling how much thievery theft of land people's lives lives are just considered like nothing to some people they shoot them for fun you've seen cases like that of invading armies just shooting children just for fun for target practice it's horrible at least there was a time when you had to shoot an arrow you had to take a sword and get to a person now you can detonate a bomb sitting in a room and you send a drone out a plane it's carrying all kinds of artillery and bombs and you're bombing cities and people destroying lives you don't even feel it you're sitting in a room and all you're seeing is just on the radar screen it's just like a little game that people are playing you play a game and you're destroying countries and cities and planets like it's nothing all you just see is a little red flash you say okay that's gone let's move on no emotions it's a horrible state of world that we're living in today really if we think about it it's a pathetic state considering how civilized we should be at the rate you know and we say well it's population control there's 7 billion of us and in the next 10 years we will probably be doubling that you know oh so we need to have population control well it's very nice to say that how about you get taken out as population control of course nobody likes that so you always want to take the one who's got no power to raise his finger or you know or voice against you well this is very this is very unjust that's what's happening in the world today so I pray that this justice prevails in the world and everybody lives harmoniously Muslims and non-Muslims everybody has a human right to live harmoniously to practice their religion the way they want it nobody should impose a religion on anyone else I don't think this is God's desire nor is it a condition Quran says there is no compulsion in religion Allah swt not even allowed two identical twins to agree on everything genetically though they are identical they don't agree with everything this is how Allah created the world who are we to enforce it everybody should agree on one idea so inshallah when Imam Mahdi alaihi salam comes there's a way to show that he will judge the people by their religions Christians will be judged by their law Jews will be judged by their law Hindus will be judged by their law now the beauty is when you start really judging them by their law the people will feel the burden of their own law and they will change from that position which will bring them to the right law there will be no compulsion in religion the compulsion will come from their self centeredness of thinking that they are right Allah will say ok this is what your law says this is how we are going to treat you they won't like it by your own law so when Imam Mahdi alaihi salam reappears the same will happen there will be minimal bloodshed and yes the strategic enemies will be removed at the cost of them shedding blood yes but minimal where will the reappearance take place historically from Rawayat we know that he will reappear at the Kaaba in Makkah on Friday and in fact it is so this history is so authentic that even those who are controlling that region now are very much afraid of Fridays because they know when he reappears many things will change and they may not be too happy about it but we want justice at any cost so he will reappear at the Kaaba what will the time period be like when he is ruling when he is ruling the messenger of Allah said that the majority of the world will be just and the minority will be unjust evil will be a minority and justice and goodness will be the majority so that's a beautiful thought today you find that a lot of injustice is the majority people in power are siphoning money for their own pockets nepotism is very popular where leaders are just protecting their own interests their own tribes and if you don't belong to any particular tribe you get marginalized people's justice today is being taken and no one can say a word the rich are elite few the majority are poor but it'll flip the other way around the majority will be well off and the minority will be poor the majority of the world will be middle class and even those who are wealthy will be very generous in sharing their wealth so that will be the state of affairs when Imam Mahdi alaihi salam comes there'll be majority happiness people will be content the misunderstandings in religion will be eradicated even today there's a lot of misunderstanding about religion, about God about the justice of God and it's because humans have intervened in creating their own stories which has led to many people to misunderstand religion Imam will correct that and explain the Quran the way it should be explained are there any supplications that we can recite in order to hasten his reappearance? well we have many du'as as we know we recite du'a faraj and so many different du'as we ask Allah swt to hasten his reappearance they say Surat al-Bani Israel the 17th chapter is a very good Surat to recite that brings about closeness to the Imam and hopefully that will be a means by which to hasten because that particular Surat has many issues that covers about the prevailing situations of the coming of the Imam in fact one of the profound verses Allah says every man on that day will be raised by the Imam in this verse they say when Imam Mahdi was born he recited this to his father Imam Hassan al-Askari as a baby it is our desire to make you the oppressed the inheritors of this earth this is also in the Biblical scriptures by the way the meek shall inherit the earth meek meaning the oppressed and we will make you leaders we will make you the inheritors and that's a command of Allah that is decreed which will happen and we are all waiting for that that we should the people of the oppressed the ones who should be leaders the ones who should lead the world with equity and justice should be the ones who should inherit the authority of the world and the Quran guarantees that that will happen so there are many du'as we can recite but I think more than any du'a if we practice goodness that's the greatest du'a possible I really feel that du'a is extremely important and it is a means by which we reach higher stages and we should recite du'a the Quran is filled with du'as with the Qul and what did they recite even the Ashab-e-Kaf people of the cave when they were being oppressed by the Roman king of the time they recited that Allah put mercy upon us and make our affairs correct these du'as are essential for us to prepare the ways for the coming of our Imam can we see him even though he has been hidden from us some people argue that since Rehbet al-Kobra it's impossible to see others argue no, he is visible and he can be seen I am ambivalent about that issue I do feel that his visibility is definitely possible and it's obvious and it's logical to insist that because he's in Rehbet al-Kobra that he should never be seen I'm not convinced about those arguments I mean it sounds right but I don't think that's really essential even Iblis is in Rehbet but he is seen under strict conditions in a prophetess to see them so I don't think that that is a requirement necessarily so I do believe he can be but in the general sense we see him through his transactions and he if he does get seen then it is not something that you would recognize until after the case because their goal is not for you to recognize who they are their goal is to guide us in the right direction and I do believe that that does happen yes well thank you for being with us today and inshallah we'll see you on we'll see you in the future inshallah thank you very much if you have missed any shows please visit www.islaminfocus.org see you next week its yet another day feeling all alone without your hand we'll always be here for you it's yet another day feeling all alone Without your presence, I just can't go on My eyes are searching for you everywhere After the end of the Friday prayer O son of Hassan, my beloved Imam