{"id":18356,"date":"2013-01-06T19:20:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T19:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=18356"},"modified":"2013-01-06T19:20:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-06T19:20:02","slug":"2013-mahdism-update-i-duet-or-duel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=18356","title":{"rendered":"2013 Mahdism Update, I: duet or duel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — comparative contemporary Turkish Mahdisms ]
\n.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Image from the Adnan Oktar \/ Harun Yahya site http:\/\/www.mahdinevershedsblood.com\/<\/p><\/div>.<\/p>\n

Here’s an intriguing paragraph today from Tim Furnish<\/strong>‘s MahdiWatch<\/a> blog, as one prospective Mahdi candidate evaluates another: <\/p>\n

Another Mahdi-related figure (sometimes seen as a forerunner, other times as a successor) is al-Qahtani. Heretofore the most prominent such was Muhammad Abd Allah al-Qahtani (d. 1979), the putatative “mahdi” held up as inspiration for the abortive coup against the Saudis led by Juhayman al-Utaby in 1979. Now, however, another-and, thankfully, more pacific-Qahtani has been identified: he is Fethullah G\u00fclen, the exiled-to-America neo-Sufi Turkish leader of a massive global charter school system This is according to a man whom some consider to be the Mahdi himself, Istanbul-based Adnan Oktar. (And in fact it’s not overly cynical to observe that since Oktar and G\u00fclen are in many ways rivals for the mantle of the late Ottoman\/early Turkish Mahdist thinker Said Nursi (d. 1960), the former’s relegation of the latter to a supporting role is quite astute in Mahdist circles.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Both Adnan Oktar \/ Harun Yahya<\/strong> and Fethullah G\u00fclen<\/strong> are worth paying attention to as popular leaders who might well be treated as Mahdi by their devotees — much as the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson<\/strong> was considered the Messiah by some of his followers — though both of them seem to be of the opinion that the authentic Mahdi would not claim that title for himself.<\/p>\n

Both men, as I understand it, also make the claim that the Mahdi will be peaceable. I don’t want to promise a more detailed account of the Mahdi-related writings of either one of them at this time, because the research effort would exceed my grasp — but for a quick glimpse, see the Adnan Oktar page on the Mahdi illustrated above<\/a>, or this page on the Mahdi<\/a> from G\u00fclen.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

There’s more interesting stuff in the rest of Furnish’s piece, but that’s the paragraph that caught my attention and triggered this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — comparative contemporary Turkish Mahdisms ] . . Here’s an intriguing paragraph today from Tim Furnish‘s MahdiWatch blog, as one prospective Mahdi candidate evaluates another: Another Mahdi-related figure (sometimes seen as a forerunner, other times as a successor) is al-Qahtani. Heretofore the most prominent such was Muhammad Abd Allah al-Qahtani (d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,753,717,623,429,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-islam","category-judaism","category-mahdist","category-turkey","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18356"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18392,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18356\/revisions\/18392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}