I know your comment was meant to be slightly sarcastic, but you may very well be right on target, in a sense.
The differences between the 12th Imam and the Mahdi. Call it what you want, but the Mahdi can be declared anyone who brings chaos to the world to conquer it as a result and to bring about the new age when Islam will rule the entire world.
The 12th Imam is the resurrection of a 5 year old hierarchical Imam who disappeared right after the funeral of his father, the 11th Imam. It is believed by the Shia that the 12th Imam will rise and lead the armies of Islam to victory.
The stunning thing about the whole Mahdi/12th Imam prophecy is how 180° it is but parallel to the prophecy of the Revelation in the Bible.
The important thing to keep in mind is that by 160 AD, the Christian version of the Bible was widely distributed and the faith was growing rapidly. The visions of Mohammed did not occur until 610 AD, from which he created the faith of Islam. Either he was seeing a counter vision or he knew he had to do something about the rise of Christianity and created Islam as a counter culture cult bent on destroying it.
mohammad was a thief. he stole and plundered material things. but he aslo stole much of his thoelogy from christiandom and perverted it to suit his own ends
“or he knew he had to do something about the rise of Christianity and created Islam as a counter culture cult bent on destroying it.”
Well yes, that’s pretty basic stuff.
Islam is an perverted amalgam religion which mixes elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroasterism combined with fascism, sexual perversion (as an enticement) and extreme violence.
It is an odd religion written by a thief and a pirate. It requires strict adherence to the religion and dogma but has almost no standard of personal values or ethics. There is no regard for life whatsoever. As is expounded daily by adherents to Islam, their greatest goal is to kill and to die.
It is a religion which at it’s very foundation is build on the premise that the ends always justify the means. This premise is very destructive and is a horrible way to live as demonstrated by examining ANY Muslim society.
In Islam obedience is the primary requirement and there is no concept of love or mercy or compassion as these are considered to be weaknesses and characteristics of Infidels.