When his occultation comes to an end: shiite islamic messianism on the foundations of a religious-political identity

The present article aims to analyze how the messianic idea presents itself and validates itself on one of the fastest growing religions in the world, Islam, based on the analysis of one of its strands that is responsible for one of the greatest political revolutions (Iranian Revolution, 1979), the Shiite strand. In order to accomplish this task, this work will be grounded on the following steps: 1) to briefly present the messianic idea in the three monotheistic religions, especially the Islamic messianism within the Duodeciman Shiite strand; 2) to search for the revolutionary elements present in Shiite Islam and to examine how these elements support the idea of messianism in this group; 3) to analyze the messianic idea as a form of identity among Shiites, and its implications in the socio-religious-political experience of this community today. Without the pretense of exhausting the subject matter, the work that follows is a succinct but great effort (jihad) in the search for the understanding of a complex element, namely, the messianism in the Islamic thought. The justification for such a goal lies in the desire to present a path of knowledge about this subject in order to encourage further discussion.