WILAYAH NEWS VOICE OF THE GLOBAL AWAKENING
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**Stories of the Infallibles (peace be upon them)**
Voices of the people rose in sending blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad and his family. Then they began repeating:
“The doubt has vanished… the doubt has vanished… There is no place for charlatans before the knowledge of the family of the Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him).”
**Imam al‑Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance)**
“Hamid…!” I exclaimed in surprise after I saw my son Hamid wearing Islamic clothing, placing his right hand on the hilt of a sword hanging at his left side.
He answered my question by saying:
“Father, I wanted to act the role of those righteous believers who used to wear their swords and go out into the desert on Fridays waiting for the appearance of Imam al‑Hujjah ibn al‑Hasan al‑Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance), so that they might be among his soldiers and supporters in removing injustice and oppression from the earth and filling it with justice and fairness.”
Hamid’s words made me dive into the pages of history. Its events began to take shape before me, until I began speaking to myself:
Indeed, the world has long awaited a dawn—a dawn like that which shone with the light of his face when he was born. The light radiated from the place of his birth until it reached the horizon of the sky. The angels descended, brushing their wings over his head, his face, and his entire body.
He was a newborn who, the moment his body touched the ground, prostrated before God. His mother stood amazed at her child, who was born circumcised, pure, and clean, without a single drop of blood emerging with him. She saw no sign of post‑birth bleeding upon herself.
While she was contemplating her newborn, he raised his index finger toward the sky, then sneezed and said:
“Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And may blessings be upon Muhammad and his family—servants who remember God without arrogance or pride.”
That newborn was **Imam al‑Hujjah ibn al‑Hasan al‑Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance)**.
His father, Imam al‑Hasan al‑Askari (peace be upon him), had been ordered to conceal him from the eyes of their enemies—those oppressive and hateful people who were exerting all their efforts to kill him immediately upon his birth. They were aware of his coming because many narrations from the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) had reported that he would be from the descendants of Husayn (peace be upon him) and that he would appear to fill the earth with justice and fairness after it had been filled with oppression and tyranny.
God willed that they be misled from discovering him and that he be protected from their evil. Because his father feared for him from his enemies, his birth remained hidden from most people.
Imam al‑Sadiq (peace be upon him) said:
“For the Master of this matter there will be a period of occultation that must occur, for a matter whose disclosure has not been permitted to you. The wisdom behind his occultation will not become clear until after his reappearance. Once we know that God is Wise, we believe that all His actions are wise even if their reasons are not clear to us.”
“Father, I see you lost in deep thought,” Hamid said with surprise.
I smiled at him and replied:
“Why only act, my son? Wouldn’t you truly like to be a soldier and supporter of Imam al‑Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance)?”
With great enthusiasm he answered:
“From the bottom of my heart, I wish to be one of his soldiers and supporters.”
“And how would you be that, Hamid? With this sword?”
“Is there anything other than a sword, father?” he asked in astonishment.
Smiling, I replied:
“You know that our age is the age of airplanes, missiles, tanks, and machine guns—deadly weapons of destruction. What could a sword do against such weapons?”
Hamid remained silent for a moment, then said in wonder:
“Father, will the Mahdi really appear with the sword of his grandfather, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him)?”
“Yes, my son. But at the same time, miracles will appear with the emergence of Imam al‑Mahdi—just like the miracles of the prophets.”
For example, during the time of the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), magic was a powerful element in Pharaoh’s rule, alongside his massive organized army. Those who believed in the coming of Moses never imagined that he would confront sorcery with miracles. God turned Moses’ staff into a great serpent that swallowed the illusions created by Pharaoh’s magicians. The magicians were astonished by this miracle and declared their faith in God and in Moses.
Another miracle of Moses was when God split the sea for him and his followers so they crossed safely, while Pharaoh and his army drowned.
In the time of Jesus, son of Mary (peace be upon him), medicine was highly advanced and physicians claimed they could revive someone who had just died. God therefore sent Jesus with miracles surpassing their knowledge. He cured the blind and the lepers with a touch of his hand and even revived the dead by God’s permission. He also formed a bird from clay and breathed into it so that it became a living bird by God’s will.
Thus he defeated the masters of medicine with a miracle greater than their science.
When our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) was sent, eloquence and rhetoric were at their peak among the Arabs. Therefore his miracle was the **Holy Qur’an**. The greatest poets and masters of language stood amazed at its eloquence and realized it could only be from God.
Since the Prophet Muhammad was the final prophet and his message the final message, God appointed from his family infallible Imams to protect Islam, defend it, and spread its knowledge among the people after the Prophet.
The first of them was **Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him)**, and the last of them is **Imam al‑Hujjah ibn al‑Hasan al‑Mahdi (peace be upon him)**.
These Imams endured severe suffering to preserve this blessed message, sacrificing their pure lives for it because they represented the front of truth against falsehood after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
Only the last of them, Imam al‑Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance), entered a state of occultation. Perhaps this occurred because the followers of truth had not yet become strong enough—intellectually and socially—to withstand ignorance, deception, and tyranny. The Imams endured hardships until the Shiʿa became a strong, united community spreading knowledge through reliable scholars and companions.
At that time it was no longer necessary for the infallible Imam to remain publicly exposed to danger. Thus God decreed that he remain hidden until the appropriate time when he would appear to fill the earth with justice after it had been filled with oppression.
Hamid then asked:
“Father, you still haven’t told me what miracles will appear with Imam al‑Mahdi.”
I replied:
“My son, since the mission of Imam al‑Mahdi is to fill the earth with justice after it has been filled with oppression, his first miracle will be the appearance of a weapon before which all the weapons of this age—and even those of future ages—will become powerless, just as Pharaoh’s magicians were powerless before the staff of Moses.”
Similarly, just as Jesus astonished the physicians of his time, and the Qur’an astonished the masters of eloquence.
Narrations say that the weapon of Imam al‑Mahdi will recognize the enemies of God and destroy them, and it will recognize the supporters of God and spare them. All other weapons will appear symbolic before it. This indicates that the Imam will possess a kind of weapon capable of disabling all other weapons and freezing all machines of war, causing the armies of his enemies to collapse in fear and terror.
As for the sword with which Imam al‑Mahdi will appear, it is the sword that the angel Gabriel brought from heaven and gave to **Ali ibn Abi Talib**. It became one of the sacred relics passed down among the Imams.
Imam al‑Mahdi will carry it to show his lineage from the Prophet, to symbolize the renewal of Islam—not the bringing of a new religion—and to honor the memory of his grandfather Ali, whose life was devoted entirely to sacrifice for the sake of truth.
At that moment Hamid removed the sword from his side and said:
“So, father, if we are destined to be among the soldiers and supporters of Imam al‑Mahdi, then we will not really need this sword.”
