Messianism and Political Action

Abstract

This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding the political implications of messianism in both Judaism and Islam, with a focus on Shi’ism. Through a comparative study of the concepts of Jewish Messianism and Shi’ite Mahdism, two major common trends are recognized in both theologies: The first trend is Passive messianism, which disapproves any political action by the believers to hasten the final redemption. For centuries, this perspective was and still is accepted by the mainstream of Jewish and Shi’ite traditionalist and orthodox scholars. The second trend, on the contrary, is called Active messianism – a rather contemporary innovation in Jewish and Shi’ite orthodoxies – which not only finds itself at ease with messianic-oriented political action, but it actually prescribes it as a necessity and a religious task for believers in order to prepare the ground for the coming of the Redeemer. The thesis of this paper is that active messianism, despite proclaiming a universal cause for redemption, has paradoxically embraced nationalism, and it has effectively reinforced and reproduced the idea of nation-state, within both Judaism and Islam. The paper seeks possible reasons for such an unusual marriage of messianism and nationalism, and it concludes that the minority status of both Jewish and Shi’ite people and their long history of suffering and vulnerability can be an explanation for this interesting phenomenon. The paper also recognizes that there is an evolution from more moderate toward more radical messianic nationalism in both Judaism and Shi’ism. While the former only seeks early preparations for final redemption to occur in an unforeseeable future time, the latter is so impatient as to even force the end by blowing into an extremist and xenophobic nationalism.