Professor Meir Litvak

Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University

Bio

Meir Litvak, Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Author of Shi`i Scholars of Nineteenth Century Iraq: The ‘Ulama’ of Najaf and Karbala’ (Cambridge University Press), co-author of Iran: from a Persian Empire to an Islamic Republic (Open University of Israel Press); Co-author , From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust (Columbia University Press); Know Thy Enemy: Attitudes towards Others in modern Shi`i Iranian Thought and Practice (Brill 2021).

Messianism Under Control: Mahdism in the Islamic Republic

Abstract

The belief in the Mahdi is one of the central tenets of Twelver Shi`ism. The Iranian clerical establishment promotes the Mahdi cult, particularly the importance of preparing the ground for his emergence. Second, is the nationalization of the Mahdi’s zuhur by highlighting the role of the 1979 Revolution in preparing the ground for it. And finally, the presentation of the Mahdi's struggle against the Jews as a central issue in the process of his zuhur.