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I also don't believe Muslims agree on matters related to the Mahdi. It is like Catholics agreeing with the general scenario in the "Left Behind" series or Protestants placing relevance on the prophetic visions at Fatima. Even those Muslims who believe in the coming of the Mahdi along with the return of Jesus would most likely reject UBL as he does not qualify (strictly speaking) as he meets certain conditions, but not others.

But it is beside the point, whether UBL is "dead, captured, or in a hidey hole" the Islamic world is as ripe for another Messianic figure to rescue them from their plight as were the humiliated Germans after WWI. If UBL does not seek to be the Mahdi, someone else will (we see this with Moqtada al-Sadr with his Black Flags and his "Army of the Mahdi").

You can look at religious postings and see all sorts of Christian folks who try to apply current events to scriptural prophecy. How many times has someone tried to prove someone is the AntiChrist by adding up the numbers in their name to 666 (in English of all things). The same phenomenon happens with Muslims.

And just as even Christians who believe in the literal meaning of prophecies fall into different camps (pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, amillenials, post-millenials, preterists, etc, etc), I imagine there is even less agreement among Muslims as the Quran does not mention the Mahdi. That is strictly from the Hadiths. And making things more interesting is that some Muslims place value on the Judeo-Christian Bible and its prophecies and tend appropriate them (and often contort them) for their own purposes.

If Kerry is elected, I am sure some of them will see it as a prophetic sign and declare him the Dajjal (AntiChrist) as he would be the first American President with a Jewish background.

Whoever aspires to be a Messianic figure like the Mahdi will have to "prove" themselves by becoming a personification of a "self-fulfilling prophecy". This is why there is the desire for the "spectacular hit" that has very meaningful timing. Interesting that after all this time, Zarqawi has just now announced he is putting himself and his organization under the authority of UBL.

This millenarian Mahdist theology has emerged before in recent history. Churchill's "River Wars" were fought in Sudan in the 1890s against a self-proclaimed Mahdi (which is why he had choice words about Muslims in that book - - just like if you find American uses of the word "Jap" it probably has something to do with WWII - - context is important). More important was the Wahhabi rebellion in Saudi in 1979. Sunnis reject the Imamate so I have always had trouble understanding how any could believe in a Hidden Imam as do the Shi'a, but the lesson of 1979 is profound. It can happen. Without being sacrilegious, who would have thought that evangelical Protestants would acclaim and advocate movie depicting the Passion of the Christ from a Traditionalist Catholic viewpoint (incorporating visions from 200 years ago by the nun Anne Catherine Emmerich). The common objective was large enough that the differences began to seem small.

http://www.meforum.org/article/159

"Another Mahdist movement with even more parallels to bin Ladin's jihad took place in 1979, when Juhayman al-‘Utaybi (d. 1980) led an attempt to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia. He and several hundred of his followers seized the Great Mosque in Mecca m and occupied it for nearly two weeks, until they were dislodged by Saudi security forces (possibly with foreign assistance). The surviving attackers were executed. What is interesting about this movement is the very fact that it was a Mahdist one: ‘Utaybi led the revolt in the name of the Mahdi, his brother-in-law Muhammad bin ‘Abdallah al-Qahtani (d. 1979), who participated in the attack. They called for severing of relations with the West; overthrowing the illegitimate Saudi regime and redistributing its wealth; and expelling all foreigners from Arabia.17

This agenda could have been written by Usama bin Ladin. What is particularly significant is that a strict Wahhabi such as ‘Utaybi would attempt to wield Mahdism as an oppositional tool. Wahhabism is known not only for its puritanism in matters of behavior but also for its eschewal of mysticism and its distrust of non-Qur'anic elements in Islam, including (at times) hadith. Yet this did not prevent ‘Utaybi from presenting Qahtani as the Mahdi, suggesting that Mahdism has penetrated the ranks even of extreme Wahhabis. ‘Utaybi, Qahtani "al-Mahdi," and their Mahdist followers were gunned down or executed by the Saudi authorities. But their claim to have an eschatological figure in their midst—one, furthermore, quite unhappy with the existing Muslim regime—demonstrates that Mahdism can take concrete form, even in the modern Sunni world and, indeed, in the very heart of conservative Islam."