A not-so-brief brief: Adnan Oktar to President Obama

[ by Charles Cameron — a highly personalized and peaceable account of the awaited Mahdi, who may according to Oktar himself already be among us ]

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I thought you might want to know the advice Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, has for President Obama:

That’s it. But there’s more to it that that single phrase.

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So who is the Mahdi, and how would Obama know what the system of the Mahdi was, so that he could do a reasonably good job at explaining it to the rest of us?

Should he, for instance, be reading the Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr, who is reported to have said:

The Mahdi is not an embodiment of the Islamic belief but he is also the symbol of an aspiration cherished by mankind irrespective of its divergent religious doctrines. He is also the crystallization of an instructive inspiration through which all people, regardless of their religious affiliations, have learnt to await a day when heavenly missions, with all their implications, will achieve their final goal and the tiring march of humanity across history will culminate satisfactory in peace and tranquility. This consciousness of the expected future has not been confined to those who believe in the supernatural phenomenon but has also been reflected in the ideologies and cult which totally deny the existence of what is imperceptible. For example, the dialectical materialism which interprets history on the basis of contradiction believes that a day will come when all contradictions will disappear and complete peace and tranquility will prevail.

Somehow, I don’t think the Turkish Yahya was suggesting the President take his understanding of the Mahdi from an Ayatollah from Najaf..

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Yahya / Oktar himself has written extensively on the Mahdi, his companion the returning Prophet, Christ, and the end times in general. Anne Ross Solberg, in her thesis The Mahdi Wears Armani: An Analysis of the Harun Yahya Enterprise, writes:

In 1987, Yahya published a brief pamphlet titled Is AIDS the Beast mentioned in the Qur’an? The first book published by Yahya on the subject of the Mahdi and the End Times was Mahdi and the Golden Age: The World Supremacy of Islam.

Solberg then lists other books subsequently published by Yahya on eschatological topics, including (in order of publication — I have omitted the Turkish titles & publication details for brevity) Jesus Will Return; Death, Resurrection, Hell: The Golden Age; The Last Days and the Beast; Signs of the End Times in Surat al-Kahf; The Glad Tidings of the Messiah; Signs of the Last Day; The Signs of Jesus’ Second Coming; The Day of Judgment; The End Times and the Mahdi; Portents and Features of the Mahdi’s Coming; The Prophet Jesus (as) and Hazrat Mahdi (as) Will Come This Century; Hazrat Mahdi (PBUH) Is a Descendant Of The Prophet Abraham (PBUH); How Did the Dajjal Die?; and The Prophet Jesus (as), Hazrat Mahdi (as) and the Islamic Union.

Solberg then writes:

Based on these publications, the Harun Yahya enterprise has made a number of documentaries that are available both as DVDs and online video files for download and streaming, as well as a vast number of websites devoted to the Mahdi and the End Times.

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So putting it mildly, the arrival and “system” of the Mahdi is a major topic for Harun Yahya – pen-name of the Turkish preacher and writer Adnan Oktar — and as Solberg suggests in the title of her thesis, he may in fact understand himself as acting in that role.

Al Jazeera put the question to Yahya / Oktar directly in an interview:

Sir, from your books and speeches it appears that you believe in the Mahdi. Do you really believe in the Mahdi? And is it certain when he will appear? Around what time will he appear on Earth?

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