gladius said:
It was a short statement I made a while back, so I doubt if you could find it. Plus I didn't give any detailed reasons.
But it was my assesment that the Muslims would not acept him as Mahdi, because Bin Laden did not fit certain prophecies for the Mahdi. Such as:
1) The Mahdi comes or was born in Medina, Bin Laden wasn't.
2) His physical appearance does not match the Mahdi's. The Mahdi will have a crook'd and pionted nose, a V-shaped gap in his teeth, the mark of the prophet on his cheek or shoulder, ect. This was the dead give away, I knew right away Bin Laden couldn't make himself to be the Mahdi.
3) The Mahdi's mother and father will have the same name as Mohammed's. Also the Mahdi's name will be Mohammed.
These are some of the reasons, that's why I knew the Muslims were not going to accept Bin Laden as Mahdi.
Some extra info:
1) The father of Osama is called Mohamed Bakr Bin Laden.
2) Since the end of 2001, bin Laden has been signing his name "Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden" rather than his usual Osama bin Laden. According to those in the know, this is significant because it gives bin Laden a messianic dimension. The Hadith teaches that al Mahdi will be recognizable by the fact that he carries the name of the prophet Muhammad.
3)Video clip of Osama bin Laden in which he stands before a dry-erase board with an Arabic phrase written upon it – "awaited enlightened one,"
4)Some of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay have told interrogators they joined bin Laden's al-Qaida offensive because they think he is the "awaited enlightened one."
-be descended from the Prophet via his daughter Fatima;
- have the same name as the Prophet, and his father's name will have been the same as the Prophet's father;
- have a distinct forehead (receding hairline?) and prominent nose;
- be extremely generous and altruistic;
- arise in Arabia and be compelled by popular acclamation in Mecca to lead the Muslims;
- withstand attack by an army from Syria, which will be swallowed up by the desert;
- fill the earth with justice and equity, as it had been previously by oppression;
- and reign for five, seven, or nine years, perhaps as co-ruler with Jesus (after which, an unspecified amount of time later, the last trumpet will sound and the Judgment will ensue).
Bin Ladin has some of these characteristics: "Muhammad" as part of his name; the correct facial physiognomy; Arab origin; a seemingly gracious personality, at least one-on-one; and an emphasis on putting oil wealth to work for the good of the disadvantaged Muslim masses.16 But the specific requirements have often been overlooked in past Mahdist claims.
The most important single prerequisite for any Mahdist claim—based on analysis of past such movements, most notably that of Muhammad Ahmad in Sudan in the nineteenth century—is baraka, or personal charisma, combined with success. Bin Ladin arguably has the first. It remains to be seen if the bombings of the Khobar towers, the American embassies in east Africa, the U.S.S. Cole, and the World Trade Center towers mark the extent of his success. But so far, he can claim to have done more harm to the major enemy of Islam than any other Muslim figure alive—an important buttress to any possible Mahdist aspiration.
If Bin Ladin – or some other Islamist leader – were to declare himself the Mahdi, should that make a difference to U.S. policy-makers????
If the claim were believable to the Islamic world, then the U.S. could no longer claim to be fighting terrorism alone, Indeed, it would become a global religious conflict.
