Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden Illustrated Edition

by Timothy R. Furnish (Author)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is probably the single most important book in English on this topic."

―

Evangelics Now

"While cautious about designating any currently visible Islamic fundamentalist as the next Mahdi, Furnish argues that it is only a matter of time before Mahdism reemerges full-blown. And when that happens, all bets will be off and no rules will apply, inside or outside the Islamic community. It is a grim prospect - but one all too credible in the context of Furnish's scholarship."

―

MultiCultural Review

"Throughout the history of Islam, a number of revolutionary movements have emerged that were centered on a rightly guided one who was meant to lead the world to rightness. These movements were based on a branch of Islam known as Mahdism, a topic that Timothy Furnish argues is overlooked in most discussions of the Middle East. Because of the potential of a Mahdist movement to create sweeping changes through violent means, Furnish believes Mahdism to be a particularly applicable subject to the modern context of the Middle East. Furnish addresses the origins of Mahdism, Mahdism throughout history, as well as the potential for a Mahdist movement in modern times."

―

Middle East Journal

"[P]rovides a perspective on Mahdism, a belief in a messianic figure in Islamic tradition who will unite all Muslims, and debates within the Muslim world on whether bin Laden is that figure."

―

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Jews, Christians and Muslims will all profit from this book because it describes a tradition deeply rooted in all three religions and surprisingly relevant to the current geopolitical situation….[F]urnish writes about Mahdism, the Islamic tradition that anticipates the appearance of a messianic figure who will purify and unite Islam, eradicate all socioeconomic injustices in the world and establish the Muslim faith as a universal religion. This idea is rooted in Judaism, is similar to Christian eschatological ideas and is hotly debated throughout the Muslim world….Most fascinating (and fearful) are his musings about Osama bin Laden's Mahdist potential, especially considering this sobering assertion: Muslim messianic movements are to fundamentalist uprisings what nuclear weapons are to conventional ones: triggered by the same detonating agents, but far more powerful in scope and effect."

―

The Lexington Herald Leader/The Wichita Eagle/Birmingham News/The Dallas Morning

About the Author

Timothy R. Furnish teaches world history at Georgia Perimeter College. He learned Arabic while serving in U.S. Army Intelligence and received his doctorate in Islamic History from Ohio State University. His specialty is Islamic eschatology, particularly modern Mahdism―Islamic messianism―and how such beliefs have influenced revolutionary political thought in the Muslim world.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Praeger; Illustrated edition (June 30, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0275983838
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0275983833
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 0.5 x 9.21 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,104,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #160 in Islam (Books)
- #303 in Middle Eastern History (Books)

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Timothy R. Furnish

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Timothy R. Furnish, PhD (Islamic, World and African History, Ohio State) is a writer, professor, former consultant to the US military and US Army veteran. He has lectured in places as varied as the US Army War College, Concordia Seminary, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Islamic Centre of England and the Mahdism conference in Tehran, Iran. Furnish also has appeared on al-Hurra TV, the BBC and Fox News Channel, as well as national and local radio programs. His area of expertise is Islamic eschatology (End of Time beliefs)--particularly Mahdism, or Muslim messianism. He is also a Christian, huge Tolkien fan, and saber fencer (usually left-handed).

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wangweilin

Furnish hits the mark with an excellent history of Mahdist uprisings and the implications for countries ...

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2015

Verified Purchase

History repeats itself - we call it the future. Furnish hits the mark with an excellent history of Mahdist uprisings and the implications for countries fighting Islamic terrorists. Policymakers should read his work. Easy to read, well organized and thoroughly footnoted.

3 people found this helpful

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Caesar Warrington

A Concentration On Sunni Mahdism

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2006

For most Muslims 'al-Mahdi' is the messianic figure who will aid the returning Isa (Jesus) to destroy the 'Dajjal' (the 'Deceiver,' the embodyment of earthly evil who shares many characteristics with the Christian Antichrist). After the Dajjal's demise the Mahdi will restore the Caliphate as a global Islamic state, bringing a long period of social and economic justice to the world's righteous before the terminal age of the Last Judgement.

Despite widespread Sunni belief and hopeful expectation for the future coming of the Mahdi, author Timothy R. Furnish feels that most Western academics have neglected the study of Mahdism, considering it a chiefly Shi'a phenomenon if not otherwise dismissing it altogether. This attitude towards so important an aspect of Islamic eschatology is what keeps Furnish's analysis limited to historical Sunni Mahdist movements, largely steering clear of those of the Shi'a and that sect's more mystical offshoots (e.g. Bahaiism, Ahmadiyya). Furnish's work here is a convincing rebuttal of much of western Islamic scholarship's conventional wisdom.

HOLIEST WARS is divided into six chapters:

1/What Is Mahdism and Where Does It Come From?

2/Mahdist Movements Throughout History

3/Counter-Mahdist Rationale and Policies

4/The Virtual Mahdi

5/Modern Muslim Anti-Mahdists

6/Conclusion: Who Will Be the Next Mahdi?

However, the book really reads as three parts: The history of the phenomenon. Its present situation and status in Sunni Islam. And the effects that such doctrines and their history have upon the near future.

Although noting that Mahdism has no Quranic grounding and furthermore is referenced in only three out of the six canonical Sunni collections of hadith (Abu Da'ud, Ibn Majah and al-Tirmidhi to be exact), Furnish provides background and overview for at least eight specific Sunni Mahdist movements, albeit acknowledging that, with the exception of the 1979 occupation of the Great Mosque in Mecca, these were often on the geographical, social and ethnic periphery of the Islamic world:

1/ Ibn Tumart and the Muwahhids (Almohads), circa 1124-1269 AD, against the Murabit (Almoravid) empire of Morocco and Spain.

2/ Western India's Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri of Gujarat and the Mahdavi movement of the 15th and 16th centuries.

3/ Ibn Abu Mahallah from early 17th century Morocco.

4/ 19th century India's Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi and his various wars against both the Sikhs and the British.

5/ Mid-19th century Algerian Mahdists Bou Zian and Mohammed Amzian.

6/ Sudan's Muhammad Ahmad and his late-19th century uprising against the Khedive of Egypt and his British allies. Muhammad Ahmad is inarguably the most notorious "Mahdi" in history. Defeating the British at Khartoum and executing the British governor, Charles George "Chinese" Gordon, Muhammad Ahmad and his uprising have become the focus of numerous novels and at least a half dozen big budget Hollywood movies.

7/ Mehmet, a Sufi of the Naqshbandi Order, who led a Mahdist revolt against the secularizing Kemal Ataturk's Turkish Republic in 1930.

8/ The 1979 takeover of Mecca's Great Mosque and attempted overthrow of the House of Saud by Juhayman al-Utaibi and his brother-in-law, Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Qahtani.

Furnish details many parallels in these various movements. In addition to their flourishing on the geographic edges of the Muslim world, these uprisings also each share a degree of Sufi influence and appeal to those peole who feel marginalized, living in societies that they see as Muslim in name only, under political systems which they feel to be decadent and servile to the West.

Furnish devotes the second part of the book to contemporary Mahdist thought and belief, providing a detailed investigation into the spate of books recently published in the Islamic world and the growing variety of websites in both Arabic and English that are devoted to this subject. He does a good job of documenting Muslim authors and sites who are anti- as well as pro- belief in Mahdist doctrine. Rather interesting are the websites highlighted here, such as the Arabic "Muntadiyat al-Mahdi" (Gathering [Chat] Rooms of the Mahdi) and "al-Muntadi" (Gathering Room), and the English site, "Mahdi Unite."

The third part of the book looks at Islamist leaders today and asks if any would or could seriously take on the role of the Mahdi. Furnish provides the qualifications as they are mentioned in the aforementioned hadith collections and doubts that the ubiquitous Usama bin Laden would ever dare to portray himself as al-Mahdi. Furthermore, among a great many other things, bin Laden's Yemeni birth and his murdering of pious Muslims contradicts Muslim expectations. Also -and most importantly- there is the problem that the Dajjal and Jesus are missing from the world scene, both are expected at the same time as the Mahdi.

HOLIEST WARS: ISLAMIC MAHDIS, THEIR JIHADS, and OSAMA BIN LADEN is a very well researched, thouroughly documented study on one of the most fascinating aspects of the Islamic faith.

21 people found this helpful

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A X Bogart

To understand the accurate and historical roots of Islamic terrorism

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2006

Dr Furnish demonstrates his expert knowledge on Mahdism, its history, and in the end the threats and challenges it could cause if bin Ladin or some other renowned Islamic terrorist were to be declared "the rightly guided one" sent to gather and recruit the Islamic faithful in preparation for the judgment by Allah at the end of time. As Furnish points out, the concept of the Mahdi is not actually contained in the Quran, but rather in a number of the Hadiths which were written separately in the early years of Islam. Furthermore, there is reference in these writings to Jesus Christ as a prophet of Islam, and how his reappearance in Syria will signal that the end of time is near.

There is debate among Islamic scholars which of these Hadiths should be regarded as authentic scriptures of the religion. However, whether authentic or not, going back to the early 12th Century AD and continuing through the last known Mahdist movement in 1979 in Saudi Arabia, these writings have been used to incite violent insurrections against governments, and bloody massacres not only of Christians and Jews, but even Muslims who did not share the views of the fanatic leaders who claimed to the Mahdi. Furnish chronicles each of these Mahdist movements, plus writes about the "Virtual Mahdi", one who has not declared himself as the leader of Muslims to the end of time, but one who may essentially be viewed as such, for example bin Ladin, and the danger this poses for the world.

When one reads the history of these violent movements, full of complete intolerance of other religions and independent branches of Islam, in which the punishment for non-conformance included death by beheading and the massacre of innocents, it seems a reasonable question to ask -- just what has changed since the 12th Century? Witness the beheadings and bombings in Iraq, the September 11th attacks, the attempts by Al Qaeda affiliates to blow up 11 American passenger jets over the Pacific in the 1990's (they came dangerously close to succeeding), attempts to kill the Pope, the oppression and terrorism brought on by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the current Iranian regime, plus the terrorist actions sponsored by Yassir Arafat extending back from suicide bombings in recent years to the kidnapping and massacre of the Israeli Olympic Team in Munich in 1972, and the hijacking and bombing of three western airliners in 1970. While it might not be Mahdism, and the weapons may be more sophisticated, the tactics, intolerance and utter disrespect for human life by this streak of Islamist fanaticism are just the same in modern times as they were during the first major Mahdist movement, by Ibn Tumart in 1130 AD.

The mainstream media and their "experts" on television talk shows often proclaim that we must understand the "root causes" of Islamic terrorism. One of their favorites they trot out ad nauseum is the Israel-Palestine conflict, never minding that the Arab world didn't give a whit about the Palestinians until 1948, and even then it was mainly used as a political tool. Oil-rich Arab governments were perfectly happy to help fund PLO terrorist operations, while expelling Palestinians from their own countries, and Yassir Arafat laundered millions in US and EU aid into his own Swiss bank accounts, while the citizens of Ramallah languished in abject poverty.

If the media, our government leaders, and concerned individuals truly want to understand the root causes of Islamic terrorism, they should read this book to gain a proper understanding of the historical facts. It's all there. The fanaticism, intolerance, and brutality that has been the trademark of Mahdist and terrorist movements for nearly a millennium is documented in detail as a result of Dr Furnish's research. There are a lot of books available on the Middle East and the terrorist threat, many of them excellent in their own right, but "Holiest Wars" presents the topic in a historical context not seen in any other book that I am familiar with. It is a must read for anyone interested in this area.

17 people found this helpful

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Joel Richardson

A very Important Book

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2005

Timothy Furnish has written what will come to be one of the most important books to help us all better understand Islam's relationship to the rest of the world. Furnish discusses the very little understood - yet crucial topic of Mahdism. The Mahdi is Islam's primary Messiah figure - an Islamic global warlord of sorts - the very idea of which adds a much greater measure of danger to an already global threat - radical Islam. This subject matter must be undertood by scholars and those in government as well as Christians or anyone who desires to understand Islam better. It is the first comprehensive study of this subject. It is fascinating, frightening and profound. As an author of another book that deals with some of this material but on much more popular level, I highly recommend this book. Furnish knows his stuff.

34 people found this helpful

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Dr. B. Moran

A powerful, inspiring and provocative point of view on Islamic traditions

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2006

No one has a book out there quite like this one, folks. Timothy Furnish masterfully takes us through his unique perspective of Mahdism and its connection to Osama bin Laden. This book was meticulously pieced together by Furnish and his expert knowledge of muslim, christian and judaic traditions and their historical impact in uniting some and violently tearing others apart is incredible. A highly interesting piece of literature that provides a great deal of perspective we can use in modern times. Timothy Furnish's first effort as an author looks quite promising indeed. I look forward to the author's next installment with great anticipation.

11 people found this helpful

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Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden Illustrated Edition

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