Making the Mahdi

Foreword

There is a certain kind of hope that only appears when the world feels like it’s coming apart.

For many of us, that hope was given a shape and a name in our youth: al-Mahdi. The idea that, somewhere beyond the chaos of wars, corruption, and hypocrisy, there is a divinely guided figure who will one day stand up, cut through the lies, and restore justice. You don’t need to be a theologian to feel the pull of that story. It lives in our parents’ stories, in our duʿāʾ, in the way we say “May Allah hasten his reappearance” almost by reflex.

And then there was the internet.

I belong to a generation that met the Mahdi not only in hadith books and majālis, but also in grainy YouTube videos, conspiracy documentaries, and long playlists passed between restless young Muslims trying to make sense of the world. For a lot of us, one series in particular stands out: The Arrivals. It mixed Qur’ān, Dajjāl, Zionism, secret societies, pop culture, and a thick sense that something very big and very dark was moving behind the scenes.

The voice and style of that series stayed with people. It gave shape to our unease. It also prepared us—quietly—for the possibility that there might be a hidden truth-teller somewhere, a voice outside the traditional institutions, a figure who would expose everything at once.

Years later, some of us looked up and realized something startling:

The same filmmaker who had warned us against false saviors and media manipulation was now claiming to be a divinely appointed savior himself.

Under the name Abdullah Hashem and the banner of a movement called the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), he began presenting new scriptures, new laws, new cosmology—and, most strikingly, a new Mahdi narrative. This time, he wasn’t only critiquing “Dajjalic” media systems; he was building his own: satellite channels, branded programs, multimedia studios, and a growing international community.

For some, this was exhilarating: the prophecy was finally “real,” alive, on screen, speaking English, answering questions, offering a total reinterpretation of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and beyond.

For others, it was deeply unsettling.

Had we just watched, in slow motion, the making of a Mahdi?

This book grew out of that unease.

I am not a judge, and this is not a fatwā. I am not here to offer a stamp of approval or a formal condemnation. Instead, this book is an attempt to do something both simpler and more difficult: To patiently examine how a modern “Mahdi figure” is constructed—doctrinally, textually, visually, and emotionally.

Along the way, I look closely at:

• The writings of Abdullah Hashem and his movement, especially The Goal of the Wise, which they explicitly present as a kind of new “Gospel” of the Riser of the family of Muhammad.
• The way their theology rewrites the story of Ahl al-Bayt, Adam and Eve, and even the Qur’ān itself.
• The internal contradictions that appear when you read these texts carefully rather than just listening to clips.
• The parallels and contrasts with an earlier post-Shīʿī movement: the Bahá’í Faith, which also emerged from Shīʿa messianic expectations and claimed to complete and reinterpret previous revelation.

The Bahá’í comparison is not meant to equate the two movements, nor to praise or condemn either one. It is meant to highlight a pattern: how, in moments of intense religious and social crisis, new claimants to divine authority build fresh narratives that stand on the shoulders of older traditions—especially Mahdist, Shīʿī, and Ahl al-Bayt–centered hopes.

In both cases, we see:

• Disappointment and disillusionment with existing religious authorities.
• A sense that the old forms are no longer adequate for a global age.
• A charismatic figure who claims a special connection to God, a mandate to reinterpret or supersede scripture, and a unique status in the chain of prophetic or Imāmī authority.

But there are also crucial differences—especially in how these movements handle the Qur’ān, Islamic law, the Ahl al-Bayt, and the line between Creator and creation. Those differences matter, not just as abstract theology, but as living realities that shape people’s faith, families, and futures.

This book is not written from the safe distance of a purely academic curiosity. It is written as someone who has tasted the pull of these ideas.

I know what it feels like to watch a video or read a text and think, “Maybe this is it. Maybe this time it’s the real one.” I know what it’s like to love the Ahl al-Bayt and long for the Mahdi, and then see that longing used—consciously or unconsciously—to legitimize bold new claims.

That is why I have tried to be careful. Where possible:

• I quote directly from movement texts rather than rely on rumors.
• I distinguish clearly between mainstream Twelver Shīʿī beliefs and the newer doctrines that claim to complete or replace them.
• I try to show not only what is wrong or contradictory, but also what is appealing and emotionally compelling in these narratives. You cannot understand a movement if you only view it with contempt.

This book is not written to mock those who believed, nor to gloat over those who left. It is written for:

• The person who watched The Arrivals and feels confused by what came after.
• The Shīʿī or Sunni Muslim who wants to love the Ahl al-Bayt without being naive about those who speak in their name.
• The seeker who senses that something powerful is happening at the intersection of media, myth, and Mahdism, and wants language to think about it more clearly.

In the pages ahead, you’ll encounter two intertwined stories:

1. The doctrinal story – how texts, visions, and reinterpretations of Adam, Eve, Ahl al-Bayt, angels, and jinn are woven into a new theology where the Imām becomes “God in creation,” the Qur’ān becomes editable, and reincarnation is presented as rajʿa in full.
2. The human story – how hope, fear, injustice, and yearning for a just world push people toward movements that promise to answer everything at once.

By the end, I hope you will not only see what is being claimed in the name of the Mahdi today, but also be better equipped to protect your own heart:

• To hold on to belief in God without surrendering your critical mind.
• To love the Ahl al-Bayt without being swept away by every new claimant who invokes their names.
• To anticipate divine justice without confusing clever media, beautiful language, or charismatic certainty with absolute truth.

If this book gives even one reader the tools to say, “I understand what’s happening here, and I can step back and think,” then it will have done its job.

And if, in the process, it helps us all pray more sincerely:

“O Allah, show us the truth as truth and grant us to follow it; show us falsehood as falsehood and grant us to avoid it; and hasten for us the relief of the true Mahdi”

—then whatever time and pain went into these pages will be worth it.

Prologue: From The Arrivals to “The Mahdi Has Appeared”

There are moments when a video can feel like revelation.

It was the late 2000s. YouTube was still young, and the Muslim internet was buzzing with a strange mix of prophecy, protest, and paranoia. Somewhere between hip-hop clips and 9/11 documentaries, a sprawling series called The Arrivals appeared. It didn’t just talk—it pulsed: Qurʾānic verses flashed over scenes of war, movie montages merged with secret-society symbols, and a low, hypnotic voice whispered about Dajjāl, Zionism, and the New World Order.

For many of us, it was the first time someone seemed to connect all the dots: Hollywood, Freemasonry, the media, even pop music—each part of an unseen web of deception. It felt like waking up. Every image carried a hidden meaning; every event pointed toward the end times. And at the heart of it all was the idea that truth was hidden—buried by the “system,” waiting to be uncovered by the chosen few.

The creator’s message was simple but intoxicating: “Do not follow the crowd. Question what you are told. The Antichrist rules through illusion.” The implication was equally powerful: perhaps you were one of the few who could still see through the illusion.

Years later, when that same voice re-emerged under a new name—Abdullah Hashem—it felt both familiar and disorienting. The tone was calmer, the production higher, but the theme remained: hidden truth, global deception, and the promise of divine restoration. Only this time, the “truth” was not simply about geopolitics or media control. It was about God Himself—and a man who claimed to speak on His behalf.

The leap from The Arrivals to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) was not really a leap at all; it was an unfolding. What began as a cinematic warning against Dajjālic deception evolved into a living drama of messianic self-revelation. The storyteller had become the story.

In the early days, Abdullah spoke of the Mahdi as a mystery, a distant hope. Later, he spoke as the Mahdi’s successor—the “Second Mahdi,” the “Qāʾim of the family of Muhammad.” By 2024, he had not one but two satellite channels—Black Banners of the East and The Mahdi Has Appeared—broadcasting across continents, announcing that the long-awaited Riser had already come, that he himself was its proof.

For followers who had grown up on The Arrivals, this felt like the natural next chapter. The same man who had once exposed deception was now offering the final revelation. He spoke English fluently, quoted scripture with cinematic flair, and told believers that the Qurʾān, Bible, and Torah were all corrupted—only his new “Gospel,” The Goal of the Wise, could restore the true message of God.

It was a message born for the internet age: polished, provocative, and deeply visual. Where older claimants delivered sermons, Abdullah delivered trailers. Where past reformers wrote treatises, he produced episodes. Even revelation itself had become serialized.

To understand why this resonated, we must remember the climate that shaped it. The early 21st century was marked by war, economic collapse, pandemic fear, and the sense that both governments and religious institutions were losing credibility. When traditional clerics debated small jurisprudential issues while bombs fell on Muslim lands, many young people looked elsewhere for meaning. They wanted a voice that spoke their language—that could mix Qurʾān with film clips, mysticism with rebellion, Arabic calligraphy with CGI fire.

Abdullah understood that hunger perfectly because he was one of those youth. He just took it further—transforming skepticism into salvation, critique into creed.

In The Arrivals, the Mahdi was the one figure left untouched by corruption. In the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, the Mahdi had arrived—and his proof was broadcasting on satellite television.

This is where the irony cuts deepest. The man who once warned us that “the true Mahdi will not appear through worldly media or television networks” now declared that God Himself had commanded him to use every screen on Earth. The same medium once called “Dajjāl’s tool” had become the instrument of divine revelation.

If this contradiction is hard to swallow, it should be. But it is also the key to understanding how a digital messiah is made.

Because beneath the contradictions lies a deeper logic: the logic of the modern age, where visibility equals legitimacy. If you are not online, you do not exist. To claim divinity, you must trend. To reveal truth, you must go viral.

The purpose of this book is not to mock believers nor to psychoanalyze Abdullah Hashem. It is to map the machinery of meaning that turns a preacher into a prophet, a YouTuber into a messiah. It is about the way a movement like AROPL takes Shīʿī symbolism, apocalyptic imagination, conspiracy media aesthetics, and post-colonial disillusionment, and weaves them into a single, glowing narrative: “We are the final covenant. We are the light of God in creation. All prophets and imams culminate in us.”

And it is about how ordinary people—sincere seekers of truth—get drawn into that narrative because it speaks to real desires: the longing for justice, clarity, belonging, and transcendence in a world that feels engineered to confuse.

If The Arrivals was the seed, The Goal of the Wise is the harvest. And what we are witnessing now—through glossy broadcasts, lush graphics, and global recruitment—is the industrialization of revelation.

This is the phenomenon I call “making the Mahdi.”

It begins with frustration and faith. It ends with a brand, a doctrine, and a camera.

Between those two points lies the story you are about to read.

Chapter 1: From Dajjāl to Deliverer

Long before anyone claimed the title “Qāʾim,” there was the mood of suspicion that made such a claim believable. That mood was born in the digital age, nursed by disillusionment, and baptized in the glow of a computer screen.

1 · The World as Deception

The early 2000s opened with a wound. 9/11, the wars that followed, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, drone strikes, collapsing economies—everywhere a sense that truth had been weaponized. Governments lied. Media lied. Scholars seemed helpless or silent. Into that distrust came a new genre: the Islamic conspiracy documentary.

The Arrivals stood at its center. It was neither film nor lecture but collage—a prophetic remix. Its rhythm of flashing eyes, pyramids, and Qurʾānic verses taught viewers not information but suspicion as faith. To watch it was to learn a method: question images, distrust institutions, decode symbols.

In that decoding, the world became a riddle authored by the Dajjāl. Every logo a sigil, every news anchor an agent, every pop song an invocation. The believer’s task was not to reform the world but to see through it.

2 · A New Literacy of the End Times

Classical Muslim eschatology imagined the Dajjāl as a one-eyed deceiver appearing near the end of history. The internet re-imagined him as a system—a network of media and money manipulating perception. “One eye” became the camera lens. Revelation became research.

This digital apocalyptic literacy had its own heroes: anonymous truth-seekers, vloggers, editors who could splice Qurʾān and movie clips into revelation. They were not ʿulamāʾ, yet they spoke with the confidence of prophecy.

For a generation alienated from both Western power and mosque bureaucracy, this felt righteous. To learn the Dajjāl’s tricks was itself a form of jihād.

3 · The Vacuum of Authority

Traditional scholars warned against amateur eschatology, but few offered alternatives that satisfied emotional hunger. Fatwas about television and music sounded tone-deaf next to images of occupation and decadence. Youth who might have entered the seminaries entered editing software instead.

In that vacuum, the line between interpreter and revelator blurred. When everyone is decoding signs, the next step is inevitable: someone will claim to be the sign itself.

4 · From Critic to Charisma

Abdullah Hashem’s genius in The Arrivals was aesthetic. He made the apocalypse cinematic. The camera didn’t just record—it warned, revealed, accused. The viewer felt part of an elect.

That same aesthetic later became his proof of spiritual election. In AROPL broadcasts, the same pacing, music, and tone reappeared, now sanctified. The medium of critique had become the medium of command.

This transformation mirrors what Max Weber called the routinization of charisma. Charisma first shocks, then institutionalizes. The Arrivals shocked; AROPL organized.

5 · The Bahá’í Precedent

A century earlier, in another Persianate context, a similar metamorphosis occurred. The Báb began as a humble interpreter of hidden meanings in Shīʿī texts. Within a few years he declared himself the promised Qāʾim. His successor, Bahāʾuʾllāh, expanded that claim into a universal revelation: all prophets are one, all faiths renewed.

The parallels are not identical but instructive:

• Both arose amid Shīʿī eschatological expectation and social upheaval.
• Both re-purposed earlier scriptures through symbolic reading.
• Both globalized what began as sectarian hope.

Yet the difference is crucial. The early Bahá’īs gradually renounced apocalyptic militancy for ethical universalism. Abdullah Hashem’s project retains the heat of apocalypse—justice not through slow reform but through imminent unveiling.

6 · Making Meaning on Camera

Modern media theory helps explain why. The camera, writes John Berger, “confers authority by visibility.” To appear is to matter. The unseen is unreal. In such a world, the Mahdi cannot remain hidden without risk of irrelevance. The logic of digital culture demands manifestation.

Thus, the very technology once labeled “Dajjālic” becomes the vessel of epiphany. Satellite channels replace minarets; thumbnails replace calligraphy; the editing timeline replaces the isnād.

What began as resistance to deception ends by baptizing the image itself. The Dajjāl’s eye becomes the Mahdi’s lens.

7 · A Psychology of Reversal

To move from exposing illusion to embodying revelation is not simple hypocrisy—it is psychological compensation. Having lived too long in a world where nothing could be trusted, the mind craves a single source that cannot lie. The critic who once dismantled idols becomes an idol precisely to escape endless doubt.

In this sense, Abdullah Hashem’s story is not an anomaly but a parable of our time: the YouTube generation’s conversion of skepticism into faith.

8 · Toward the Next Chapter

This chapter has traced the soil in which new Mahdī claims take root: digital suspicion, fractured authority, and the need for visibility. The next chapter turns from mood to text, analyzing The Goal of the Wise—the scripture through which Abdullah Hashem transforms a movement of seekers into a system of belief, and a media persona into a living covenant.

Chapter 2: Writing the Mahdi into History

Revelation, once sealed, has now been serialized.

In The Goal of the Wise, Abdullah Hashem and his followers attempt the most audacious project in modern Shīʿism: reopening the canon.

1 · The Architecture of the Covenants

The book divides divine history into seven covenants, each revealed to a prophet: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and finally Ahmad al-Hassan. Each is portrayed not as a distinct dispensation but as a phase of one continuing revelation. Humanity, they claim, is now entering the “Seventh Covenant,” the final unveiling of hidden truth.

This framing accomplishes something profound: it re-casts Ahmad al-Hassan as the capstone of prophecy without openly denying Muhammad’s finality. He is not a prophet, the text insists—merely the next covenant-bearer. Yet in practice, the distinction collapses. When a new book, a new law, and a new religion appear, the function of prophethood has effectively resumed.

2 · The Five Prayers as Five Mahdis

One passage claims that each of the five daily prayers symbolizes the Wilāyah—divine authority—of successive Mahdis: the Fajr (dawn) prayer represents the Hidden Imam, Ẓuhr (noon) belongs to Ahmad al-Hassan, ʿAṣr (afternoon) to his son Abdullah Hashem, and so on until the cycle repeats forever. Prayer thus ceases to be an act directed toward God; it becomes allegiance to a chain of incarnate beings.

This is not metaphorical piety but doctrinal replacement. Classical Islam prays to God through prescribed times; the Seventh Covenant prays through men who are said to embody God’s light.

3 · The “New Book” and “New Religion”

Where earlier Shiʿism taught that the Mahdi would restore the sharīʿah, The Goal of the Wise insists that he brings a “new book, new jurisprudence, and new religion difficult for the Arabs.” This phrase, drawn from Kitāb al-Ghaybah, is re-contextualized: what traditional hadith meant as renewal of justice becomes literal abrogation. The Qurʾān itself is declared “corrupted” in a later chapter, replaced by Hashem’s revelations.

Here the movement’s rhetoric slips from Mahdism into Post-Islam. The Mahdi no longer defends the faith; he replaces it.

4 · The Doctrine of Incarnations

The text also asserts that the Ahl al-Bayt reappear cyclically through “incarnations,” each bearing a copy of the previous soul. Thus Ahmad al-Hassan is an incarnation of Imam Ḥusayn; Abdullah Hashem, his son, an incarnation of Joseph. Even the Ulul-ʿAzm prophets—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus—are reborn as Mahdis.

This teaching merges reincarnation, emanation, and lineage, erasing the boundary between Creator and creature. God manifests as light, light as Imams, Imams as Mahdis, Mahdis as men—an infinite descent of divinity into flesh. It is theologically elegant, yet devastating to tawḥīd.

5 · Contradiction and Consequence

The contradiction is not only textual but existential. If revelation continues forever, obedience must shift continually from one “light” to another. If every Mahdi can reinterpret scripture, no truth remains stable. The result is a theology that both denies and depends on closure: the Qurʾān is called incomplete so that new words may claim perfection.

This is how movements survive critique—by making critique itself a proof of prophecy. Doubt becomes confirmation, and contradiction becomes the engine of faith.

6 · The Baháʾī Parallel

As with the Baháʾī revelation before it, The Goal of the Wise transforms disappointment into doctrine. The Twelver wait for the unseen Imam becomes a global invitation to follow the seen one. Yet where the Baháʾī faith sought harmony, Hashem’s movement retains the edge of apocalypse. Its purpose is not coexistence but culmination.

Chapter 3: The Editor-in-Chief of Revelation

Note: In the original manuscript, this was Chapter 4. It has been renumbered to preserve continuity.

If the earlier chapters described a theology of Light, this one turns to language. For Abdullah Hashem, revelation is not a closed book preserved by memory — it is a living manuscript still under revision.

In The Goal of the Wise, scripture itself becomes editable, and the authority of God is exercised through editorial control.

1 · The Qurʾān Under Revision

Classical Islam treats the Qurʾān as muʿjiz — inimitable, perfect, and protected from alteration: “Indeed, We have sent down the Reminder, and We will surely preserve it.” (Q 15:9)

But in Hashem’s view, preservation has failed. The Qurʾān we hold, he says, has been tampered with by early compilers, distorted by sectarian editors, and infused with “ancient Israeli superstition.” This claim serves a crucial rhetorical function: once the old text is declared corrupt, a new text can claim to restore the truth. Thus The Goal of the Wise presents itself as both Gospel and errata sheet — a commentary that quietly becomes a replacement.

2 · The New Canon

In several passages, the Mahdi is described as “bringing a kitāb jadīd — a new book and new law.” Classical Shīʿī commentators took this as metaphor: a renewal of justice within the same revelation. Hashem’s group reads it literally. The new book is here, they say, and it supersedes the Qurʾān as we know it.

Each “chapter” of The Goal of the Wise mirrors a sūra: it begins with a basmala, ends with eschatological warnings, and carries verses in rhythmic Arabic prose. The message is unmistakable — this is not commentary; it is continuation.

The Qurʾān, in this model, is no longer the criterion of truth. It becomes source material for remix — an early draft that the Riser now “corrects.”

3 · Selective Abrogation

Once textual corruption is alleged, interpretive surgery becomes easy. When a verse affirms mercy — “Despair not of the mercy of Allah” (39:53) — it is declared authentic. When a verse appears severe — “Cut off the hand of the thief” (5:38) — it is deemed forged or mistranslated.

Hashem’s method resembles modern editing software: drag the verse, drop the context, delete the contradiction. Law becomes fluid. By the same principle, fasting may shift to December, alcohol becomes permissible in moderation, and ritual obligations yield to “spiritual understanding.” This is not interpretation (taʾwīl); it is curation — revelation by deletion.

4 · Re-authoring the Law

The classical Shīʿī hierarchy — Qurʾān → Sunnah → Imām — is replaced with a new triad: Revelation → Explanation → Broadcast. The divine speaks through the Mahdi; the Mahdi explains through new texts; his followers disseminate through satellite and social media. The minbar becomes a camera, the muṣḥaf a teleprompter.

Authority thus migrates from parchment to production. Where jurists once issued fatāwā, producers now cut and upload “episodes.” Where early Muslims memorized verses, modern believers share clips. In the age of bandwidth, ijtihād has become editing.

5 · Revelation as Brand

Every scripture cultivates a style to mark its sanctity. The Qurʾān’s unique rhythm made listeners fall silent; the King James Bible’s cadence commands reverence. Hashem’s new text adopts the branding of modern design — gold calligraphy, cinematic music, scrolling subtitles. Revelation is aestheticized; prophecy becomes a franchise.

This aesthetic continuity from The Arrivals to The Goal of the Wise is deliberate: the same fonts, the same dark-gold palette, the same apocalyptic drumbeat. The message is that prophecy has evolved — from parchment to pixels. The sacred now appears in 1080p.

6 · The Baháʾī Counter-Model

Bahāʾuʾllāh, too, revealed new scripture: the Kitāb-i-Aqdas, a “Most Holy Book” that abrogated earlier laws. Yet he anchored his revelation in linguistic continuity — Arabic eloquence, measured rhythm, a disciplined moral code. Hashem’s project is looser: post-scriptural in style, improvisational in content, deliberately hybrid between sermon and screenplay.

Where Bahāʾuʾllāh spoke of harmony between faiths, Hashem declares the failure of all previous revelations. Where the Baháʾī writings construct a new civility, AROPL thrives on rupture — every contradiction a sign of freshness, every scandal a mark of authenticity.

Thus, if the Baháʾī Faith sought to stabilize revelation, Hashem’s movement seeks to accelerate it. Progressive revelation becomes perpetual beta.

7 · The Logic of Perpetual Draft

In this system, divine truth is never final. Each Mahdi can reopen the file, correct previous errors, and upload Version 8.0 of religion. This gives followers a paradoxical comfort: they live in a universe under constant revision, yet always “up-to-date.” To question the process is heresy; to await the next update is faith.

The outcome is a theology perfectly tailored for the digital psyche — endlessly refreshing, endlessly unfinished.

8 · Toward the Next Chapter

The movement that began with suspicion of media now depends on it. When revelation becomes editable, authority must become visible. The next chapter explores the human side of that transformation — how followers read contradiction as proof, how doubt becomes devotion, and how charismatic certainty replaces classical scholarship.

It is the passage from The Editor-in-Chief of Revelation to The Factory of Faith.

Chapter 4: The Mahdi Factory: Media, Myth, and Modern Faith

Note: In the original manuscript, this was Chapter 5. It has been renumbered to preserve continuity.

Every age builds its own machinery of belief. For ours, that machinery hums with pixels, algorithms, and screens. The ancient dream of a hidden savior — once whispered in desert caves and recited in mosques — is now produced, packaged, and streamed worldwide. The Mahdi has entered the studio.

1 · The Architecture of a Digital Messiah

The story of Abdullah Hashem begins not in a mosque or seminary but in an editing room. His first revelation was not a vision but a montage. By the time The Arrivals reached millions, he had already mastered the essential grammar of our age: cut, contrast, conclude.

That grammar is theological. It teaches revelation through rhythm, proof through juxtaposition. The prophet of pixels preaches not in words but in transitions. A symbol flashes, a verse appears, a beat drops — and faith is born through pattern recognition.

When he later declared himself the successor to the Mahdi, the stage was already built. Every visual motif, every musical cue, every conspiratorial pattern had prepared the audience to accept him not as creator of a film, but as continuation of a prophecy.

2 · Branding the Apocalypse

Every charismatic movement has an aesthetic. For Abdullah Hashem, that aesthetic is black and gold: the hue of banners and branding alike. In AROPL’s visual world, colors carry creed.

• Black stands for eschatology — the war of truth against the Dajjāl.
• Gold signifies divine light, the glory of God in creation.
• Red marks martyrdom and lineage to Karbalāʾ.

Logos echo the Seal of the Prophet, the All-Seeing Eye, the Lion of ʿAlī. Every broadcast begins with apocalyptic typography, blending Qurʾānic recitation with orchestral tension. The style is not accidental — it’s evangelism through design.

In classical Islam, calligraphy was the sign of reverence. In Hashem’s movement, branding replaces calligraphy. Where once the divine word was written with ink, it is now rendered in After Effects.

3 · The Economy of Attention

The AROPL movement thrives not on territory but on attention. Its currency is engagement, its converts measured in clicks and views. In this ecosystem, the Mahdi no longer needs an army — he needs a subscriber base.

Every contradiction, every controversy, every denunciation online serves as fuel. Critics become unpaid marketers. Each reaction video expands the myth. Just as a prophet once needed enemies to confirm his truth, a digital messiah needs algorithms to amplify his voice.

The formula is simple: Outrage equals reach. Reach equals relevance. Relevance equals revelation. Thus, the factory hums. Faith becomes analytics; piety becomes performance.

4 · From Community to Cult

Traditional Shīʿī piety binds believers through shared rituals — prayer, mourning, pilgrimage. Hashem’s version replaces these with broadcast rituals: live-streamed recitations, synchronized viewings, collective comments during sermons.

The umma (community) becomes a feed. Identity is measured by digital proximity: how quickly one reposts a quote, how often one joins a livestream, how perfectly one echoes the founder’s phrasing. This new structure blurs community and cult.

• The ʿulamāʾ are obsolete, replaced by moderators.
• Ijmaʿ (consensus) becomes algorithmic.
• Isnād (chain of narration) becomes subscription history.

In the traditional sense, cultus means worship. Here, worship is literal: the Mahdi as God in Creation. To question him is apostasy; to leave is to “die the death of ignorance.”

The Mahdi Factory, then, is not just metaphor. It is a real system of production — manufacturing obedience, one upload at a time.

5 · The Psychology of the Chosen

Why do followers believe? Not because the logic is flawless — but because the story is complete. Every anxiety finds a place: political betrayal, social isolation, the corruption of scholars, the hypocrisy of preachers.

In Hashem’s cosmology, all of these become evidence for the truth of his claim. If the world is corrupt, the Mahdi must already have come. If the clerics reject him, it proves he is real — for the prophets were always rejected first. If the Qurʾān is inconsistent, it only confirms that the final revelation is still unfolding.

Doubt is not danger — it is design. The system converts skepticism into sanctity. The more absurd the claim, the more heroic the believer who accepts it.

6 · The Postmodern Prophet

Hashem’s genius lies in his synchronization with postmodernity. He doesn’t fight media culture; he inhabits it. He doesn’t claim perfection; he claims progress. His revelations update like software patches — versioned, iterated, evolving.

This is the theological mirror of our world:

• In politics, truth changes with each news cycle.
• In marketing, brands reinvent themselves weekly.
• In religion, revelation uploads in real time.

The Mahdi Factory is simply the spiritualization of this rhythm — a feedback loop between faith and media where both depend on perpetual novelty.

7 · The Baháʾī Contrast

The Baháʾī faith faced a similar question: how to universalize revelation without collapsing it into chaos. Its solution was administration — a House of Justice to codify succession and law. Charisma gave way to institution.

Hashem’s movement rejects that discipline. It thrives on fluidity, on the living presence of a charismatic leader. It is not built to outlast him; it is built to extend him — digitally, endlessly.

In that sense, AROPL is not a religion but a stream. It flows as long as data does.

8 · The Cycle of Reinvention

Movements like this rarely die; they mutate. When leaders fall, followers rebrand the message. A disciple claims new dreams; an offshoot rewrites old texts. The cycle begins again — each new Mahdi born from the ashes of the previous one’s disappointment.

This is the modern pattern of revelation: Collapse is not failure — it is franchise. The Bab became Bahāʾuʾllāh. Ahmed al-Hassan became Abdullah Hashem. The next “Riser” is already rehearsing his script somewhere online.

9 · The Machinery Behind the Miracle

Behind every miracle claim is infrastructure — cameras, editors, servers, funding. Behind every “divine broadcast” is a network of volunteers and algorithms. And behind every vision of the unseen is a spreadsheet of expenses.

To call this cynical misses the point: this is how belief travels now. The Mahdi Factory is simply the industrialization of yearning — taking the timeless human hunger for justice and channeling it through modern media economies.

10 · The Human Remainder

Still, beyond the cynicism and critique, something real burns at the center. A longing for meaning. A refusal to accept a world ruled by cruelty and deceit. A hope that the hidden truth might one day speak aloud.

If Abdullah Hashem’s movement teaches anything, it is that humanity has not lost its faith — only changed its format. The impulse toward revelation survives; it just broadcasts differently.

11 · Toward the Epilogue

The Mahdi Factory is not about one man. It is about us — the consumers of prophecy, the believers in pattern, the editors of our own meaning. In the end, Hashem’s rise and contradictions expose the tension between two truths: that the sacred cannot be mass-produced, and that the modern soul will always try.

The next and final section, the Epilogue, turns from analysis to reflection — asking what it means to believe, to hope, and to wait in an age when everyone has a camera and everyone can claim the light.

Epilogue: Waiting for the Light

Every generation waits for its Mahdi. Some wait with prayer beads, some with headlines, some with camera lenses. The longing itself never dies — only the language changes. In the quiet heart of every believer lies the same question: When will truth reveal itself again?

1 · The Weight of Waiting

Classical Shīʿī piety sanctified waiting (intizār). To await the Mahdi was to polish the soul, to live ethically in the absence of justice. But in the digital age, waiting feels impossible. The screen blinks; the feed refreshes. We no longer wait for revelation — we scroll for it.

The modern believer no longer stands at the threshold of prophecy. He stands in an infinite hallway of notifications, each one whispering: This is it. The apocalypse has become an algorithm.

2 · Between Faith and Fabrication

It would be easy to dismiss Abdullah Hashem and his movement as illusion, but to do so would miss the mirror they hold up. Their contradictions only dramatize what our entire civilization already does: manufacture truth through media, mix fact and feeling, and call the result revelation.

We all edit reality. We all curate the stories that make us feel chosen. The difference is that some do it with film software — and others, with faith.

To study such movements is not mockery; it is self-examination. For the same hunger that drives a man to claim divinity also drives another to click “Subscribe.”

3 · The Unbearable Light

Hashem’s theology of light — divine essence refracted into human form — is dangerous, yes, but also deeply human. Every lover of God, from mystics to poets, has tried to touch that same radiance. When he says “God is in creation,” he echoes what mystics like Ibn ʿArabī whispered centuries ago: that the world is a mirror of the Beloved, that all forms veil and reveal at once.

The difference is discipline. Mystics dissolve themselves in the light; Hashem installs himself as its source. What begins as longing ends as possession — the mirror mistaking its own reflection for the sun.

4 · The Fragmented Faith

Across the world, faith splinters into fragments — each sect, each influencer, each self-declared guide producing their own small revelation. The internet, once imagined as the Tower of Babel rebuilt, has instead multiplied tongues. There are more prophets than ever — and fewer listeners.

But beneath the noise remains an old, unkillable desire: to know that life has meaning, that justice will return, that the unseen watches us still. In this sense, even false prophets perform an ancient service: they remind us that the world still aches for God.

5 · The Ethics of Discernment

What, then, should we learn from all this? Not merely to reject new claimants — that is easy. But to cultivate discernment: a mind awake enough to analyze, a heart humble enough to hope.

To discern is to wait wisely. To balance revelation and reason. To remember that God does not fear investigation — only imitation.

The Qurʾān’s light does not fade when questioned; it brightens. Authentic faith, like authentic scholarship, welcomes scrutiny as worship.

6 · The Human Need for the Hidden

Perhaps the greatest paradox of the Mahdi myth is this: the savior remains hidden because we need him to be. A visible redeemer would end the drama of human striving. A hidden one keeps morality alive. As long as the Mahdi is unseen, the believer must act as if he were.

That is the secret embedded in the tradition — not apocalyptic urgency, but ethical continuity. To live justly in the absence of justice; to keep a lamp burning in the dark.

7 · The Last Image

Imagine this: A dark room, a glowing screen. A believer, scrolling late into the night. Across the feed, another video appears — banners, prophecy, a call to truth. He hesitates, thumb trembling over the play button.

In that moment, before the click, a small voice asks: What if the light I seek is not on the screen, but within? That moment — that pause — is where revelation still lives. Not in broadcast, but in the breath between certainty and doubt.

8 · The End of the Beginning

Making the Mahdi ends here, but the conversation it opens does not. Every age will find its new savior, its new story, its new screen. And every heart will continue the same ancient task: to tell light from illusion, and hope from hunger.

For perhaps the real Mahdi is not the one who appears, but the one who teaches us to wait without despair.

Appendices: Glossary, Charts, and Comparisons

A. Glossary of Key Terms

• Ahl al-Bayt: “People of the House.” The family of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, specifically ʿAlī, Fāṭimah, Ḥasan, Ḥusayn, and their descendants. Central to Shīʿī veneration and authority.
• Ahmed al-Hassan: Founder of the movement known as Ansar al-Mahdi and later The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL). Claims to be the Yamani and successor of the Twelfth Imam.
• Abdullah Hashem: Filmmaker behind The Arrivals and later figurehead of AROPL’s “Seventh Covenant.” Claims to continue the mission of Ahmed al-Hassan.
• Al-Qāʾim: “The One Who Rises.” A messianic title for the awaited Mahdi who restores justice and truth before the end of time.
• AROPL: Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, a splinter movement led by Abdullah Hashem, emerging from the Ansar al-Mahdi group.
• Dajjāl: The Antichrist figure in Islamic eschatology, a deceiver who will mislead the world before the Mahdi’s appearance.
• Ghulūw: “Exaggeration.” Excessive veneration of prophets or Imams to the point of deifying them — a frequent critique of heterodox Shīʿī sects.
• Intizār: “Waiting.” The devotional act of anticipating the return of the Mahdi; a core virtue in classical Shīʿī spirituality.
• Mahdi: “The Guided One.” The awaited savior in Islam who will reappear before the Day of Judgment to establish justice.
• Seventh Covenant: Doctrine asserting that divine revelation has entered a new phase through Ahmed al-Hassan and Abdullah Hashem, abrogating the Qurʾān and prior religions.
• Wilāyah: Divine guardianship; the authority and love for the Imams as successors of the Prophet.

B. Timeline and Movement Genealogy

Year / Period	Event	Significance
2007–2009	The Arrivals released online	Visual series blending Qurʾānic eschatology, conspiracy theory, and anti-globalist imagery.
2010–2015	Growth of Ansar al-Mahdi	Expansion of Ahmed al-Hassan’s following emphasizing hidden knowledge.
2016–2020	Formation of AROPL	Abdullah Hashem rebrands as Mahdi-successor with media-based messianic theology.
2021–2023	Doctrine of the Seventh Covenant	Publication of The Goal of the Wise; claims to supersede Qurʾān as divine revelation.
2024–Present	AROPL global digital phase	Satellite broadcasts, online daʿwah, and transnational recruitment efforts.

C. Comparative Theology Chart

Concept	Classical Twelver Shīʿism	Baháʾī Faith	Abdullah Hashem’s AROPL
Prophethood	Sealed with Muhammad ﷺ.	Continues through Manifestations of God.	Reopened via Ahmed al-Hassan and Abdullah Hashem.
Scripture	Qurʾān final, protected.	New book revealed for a new era.	Qurʾān declared altered; The Goal of the Wise replaces it.
Imamate	Twelve infallible successors.	Spiritual continuity, not lineage.	Infinite cycle of Mahdis through reincarnation.
Divinity	Strict tawḥīd; God transcendent.	Prophets mirror divine names.	Mahdi as 'God in Creation.'
Revelation	Concluded; awaiting reappearance.	Progressive revelation.	Perpetual revelation; each Mahdi edits divine law.
Community Structure	Jurists interpret law.	Elected House of Justice governs.	Centralized under living leader and media hierarchy.
Goal	Justice under divine law.	Unity of humanity.	Manifestation of divine light and judgment.

D. Conceptual Charts

• Cycle of Revelation According to Hashem: Adam → Noah → Abraham → Moses → Jesus → Muhammad → Ahmed al-Hassan → Abdullah Hashem → (Infinite Continuation)
• Spiritual Genealogy: God (Light) → Ahl al-Bayt → Mahdis → Believers (Reflections of Light)

E. Analytical Summary

Abdullah Hashem’s doctrine represents the digitalization of esotericism — a postmodern remix of Imāmī and gnostic motifs into a globalized, media-driven religion. Where Bahāʾuʾllāh universalized prophecy into ethics, Hashem personalizes it into spectacle. His theology of light transforms revelation from a message about God into a performance of God. The result is both tragic and illuminating: a modern myth exposing the machinery of belief — and our collective longing to find light, even in the flicker of a screen.