mad is our
Prophet, the Quran and Mahdi are just and true. Imam Mahdi is come and
gone. Whosoever disbelieves this is an infidel." They are a very fanatical
sect.

There is another small community of Ghair-i-Mahdis called the Da,iri,
settled in the province of Mysore, who hold peculiar views on this point.
About four hundred years ago, a man named Syed Ahmad collected some
followers in the dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He called himself the
Imam Mahdi, and said that he was superior to any prophet. He and his
disciples, being bitterly persecuted by the orthodox Musalmans, fled to a
village in the adjoining district of Mysore where their descendants,
fifteen hundred in number, now reside. It is said that they do not
intermarry with other Musalmans. The usual Friday service in the mosque is
ended by the leader saying: "Imam Mahdi came and went away," to which the
people respond: "He who does not believe this is a Kafir" (infidel).

There are several Traditions which refer to the latter days. "When of time
one day shall be left, God shall raise up a man from among my descendants,
who shall fill the world with justice, just as before him the world was
full of oppression." And again: "The world shall not come to an end till
the king of the earth shall appear, who is a man of my family, and whose
name is the same as mine." When Islam entered upon the tenth century of its
existence, there was throughout Persia and India a millenarian movement.
Men {82} declared that the end was drawing near, and various persons arose
who claimed to be Al-Mahdi. I have already mentioned two. Amongst others
was Shaikh 'Alai of Agra. (956 A.H.) Shaikh Mubarak, the father of
Abu'l-Fazl--the Emperor Akbar's famous vizier, was a disciple of Shaikh
'Alai and from him imbibed Mahdavi ideas. This brought upon him the wrath
of the 'Ulama who, however, were finally overcome by the free-thinking and
heretical Emperor and his vizier. There never was a better ruler in India
than Akbar, and never a more heretical one as far as orthodox Islam is
concerned. The Emperor delighted in the controversies of the age. The Sufis
and Mahdavis were in favour at Court. The orthodox 'Ulama were treated with
contempt. Akbar fully believed that the millennium had come. He started a
new era, and a new religion called the 'Divine Faith.' There was toleration
for all except the bigoted orthodox Muslims. Abu'l-Fazl and others like
him, who professed to reflect Akbar's rel