Their investigations are summarized by Dr. Macdonald in the Encyclopedia of Islam . The subject is of great importance because the doctrine of the mahdi and his appearance on the scene has produced political events of no small importance to Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands in their several colonial possessions and interests for more than a century. Literally mahdi means a divinely guided one. The title is used of certain individuals in the past and also of an eschatological personage yet to come. But it is as an eschatological figure that the appearance of a mahdi brings disturbance in the world of thought and politics.
Men always fall away from the faith.
Then the end will come 2 . But the masses were not satisfied in times of political, social or moral darkness, with an eschatological Messiah of the distant future. They looked for a little millenium before the end. This is expressed in later traditions. The later we go the more popular are the sources and the more 1 Goldziher, Vorlesungen uber den Islam , pp.