Chapter 6

Victory News Magazine

A Discussion Concerning The Mahdi ( A)

Prophet Noah ('a) and the Mahdi (may Allah swt hasten his appearance)

I do not know whether it is a matter of accident that only two individuals are entrusted with the mission to purge human civilization and build it anew, and both have long life-spans, several times the normal? One of them who performed such a role in the past was Noah, about whom the Noble Qur'an explicitly says that he remained among his people for a period of nine-hundred and fifty years and it became possible for him to create a new world after the flood. The other, who will perform his role in future, is the Mahdi who continues to be among his people for more than a thousand years, and who will be enabled to create a new world on the promised day in the future. If we accept the case of Noah who lived for at least a thousand years, why should we not accept the case of the Mahdi?

Miracle and Long Life

Until this point we have observed that a long life-span is scientifically possible. But if it is supposed that it is not practically possible and the law of aging is an inflexible law, which mankind has not been able to overcome until today and to alter its conditions, what does that imply? It implies that prolonging the human life-span for several centuries, such as in the case of Noah and the Mahdi, is against natural laws as proved by the modem scientific methods of experimentation and induction. As a consequence this becomes a miracle wherein a natural law is suspended in a specific situation for preserving the life of a person entrusted with safeguarding the celestial message. This miracle is neither the only one of its kind nor is it incredible from the viewpoint of Muslim belief based upon explicit Quranic verses and the Prophet's traditions. That is because the law of aging is not more inflexible than the law of heat transfer, according to which heat flows from a hotter body to one at a lower temperature until the two are at an equal temperature. This law was suspended for the sake Abraham ('a) when the only way to save him was to suspend this law. Hence when Abraham was thrown into fire, it was told: 

Thereat he came out from it unhurt and untouched by fire. Similarly other natural laws were suspended for the sake of support to other figures from among the prophets and testaments of God upon the earth, such as the parting of the sea for Moses, the illusion of the Romans that they had arrested Jesus while in fact they had not arrested him, and the Prophet Muhammad's (s) going out unseen from his house which had been besieged by the Quraysh who lay in wait for hours to attack him and God concealed him from their eyes when he walked out through their midst. All these cases represent suspension of natural laws for the support of an individual whose preservation is desired by providence. The law of aging might be one of those laws.

From this we may derive a general notion that whenever the preservation of the life of a human testament (hujjah) of God on earth-which is necessary for the fulfilment of the mission for which he has been prepared-depends upon suspending a natural law, divine providence intervenes to suspend that law for the sake of the fulfilment of that mission. Conversely, if the mission for which the individual has been prepared is completed, he dies naturally or is martyred in accordance with the workings of natural laws.

Concerning this general notion we are usually faced with the following question: How is it possible for the laws of nature to be suspended, severing the necessary relationship between natural phenomena? Is this anything except negation of science which has discovered natural laws and determined the necessary relationship on the basis of the principles of experimentation and induction?

The answer is that science itself has answered this question by relinquishing the concept of necessity in relation to natural laws. To explain, science discovers natural laws on the basis of experiment and systematic observation. That is, when a particular natural phenomenon follows another phenomenon, science infers from this succession a natural law that whenever the first phenomenon occurs the second follows it. But in this law science does not presume the existence of a necessary relationship between the two phenomena arising from their essences, because necessity is an unobservable condition which cannot be proved by experimentation and instruments of scientific induction. It is for this reason that the logic of modem science emphasizes that natural laws, as known to science, do not speak of a necessary relationship but of association between two phenomena. Hence if a miracle occurs and one of the two phenomena involved in a natural law is excluded, it does not involve breaking of a necessary relationship between two phenomena.

In fact, in the light of the logic of modem science miracle, in its religious sense, has become more comprehensible than it was in the light of the classical view relating to causal relationships. The earlier viewpoint conceived two phenomena which were constantly associated with one another as bound by a necessary relationship, and this necessity implied the impossibility of their separation. But this relationship has changed in modem science into the law of persistent association and succession between two phenomena which does not presume unobservable necessity.

On this basis, a miracle becomes an exception to the state of persistent association and succession without conflicting with necessity or leading to impossibility.

In the light of the principles of inductive logic, we concur with the modem scientific viewpoint that induction does not prove the existence of a necessary relationship between two phenomena. But we think that it does indicate the presence of a common interpretation for persisting association and succession between two phenomena. In the same way that this common interpretation may be justified on the basis of the assumption of essential necessity, similarly it is possible to justify it on the basis of Divine wisdom which prompts the orderer of the universe to persistently link certain phenomena with others and it is this wisdom itself which at times demands an exception leading to the occurrence of a miracle.

God's Concern in Extending His Life

We will now take up the second question which is, why should God, the Glorious and the Exalted, show such special concern for this particular individual and suspend natural laws for the sake of prolonging his age? Moreover, why not leave the leadership of the promised day for someone to be born in the future, to be summoned by the signs of the promised day, to appear on the stage and carry out his awaited role? In other words, what is the benefit of this long occultation and what is its justification?

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