Before starting this website, I ran one called Mahdiwatch. There, way back in 2008, I posted an online “interview” I had done with a group purporting to speak for an Iraqi religious figure named Ahmad al-Hassan, who claimed to be the precursor to the Islamic Mahdi. Three years ago, on this site, I wrote about another chap, Abdullah Hashem Aba al-Sadiq, who maintained that al-Hassan had anointed him (figuratively) as the actual Mahdi. Well, Abdullah Hashem is back in the news. This is according to a long story published yesterday by the BBC, “Religious leader ‘hijacked’ movement, claims brother.” And now he’s taken his Mahdist cult to the UK.
Hashem is the “self-proclaimed Mahdi” who heads up the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), now based in a former orphanage in Crewe, Cheshire, UK. (This Islamic offshoot is separate from the Ahmadiyya sect, founded in the late 19th c. in India.) Here is the group’s slick website, which includes a long list of its beliefs. These appear to be an eclectic amalgamation of various Twelver Shi’i and perhaps some Sufi doctrines on the Mahdi/Twelfth Imam, reinterpreted by Hashem.
While the “Mahdi’s” brother, Abdul Rahman (who left the group and lives in Florida), tells the BBC “I don’t think he believes he is the Mahdi,” the British new outlet said that according to the former’s lawyers, it is “false and highly damaging to suggest that Mr Hashem doesn’t believe himself to be the Mahdi.” What about that supposed imprimatur from Iraq? “The office claiming to represent Ahmad al-Hassan in Iraq told the BBC they denounced Abdullah Hashem….” However, the latter’s lawyers “dispute that the office in Iraq represents the elusive al-Hassan.” Who knew the Mahdi would need so much legal help? One might also wonder how a group with 170 members could afford to buy what appears to be a large compound (per the pictures in the BBC story), in addition to so many lawyers? (Perhaps because, like many cults, its followers “are encouraged to sell their assets when they join.”)
This past spring, the local police raided the AROPL compound “following allegations of sexual offences, forced marriage, and modern slavery made by a former member.” Fourteen people were arrested, although the cult was allowed to continue operating. The BBC story also details the strange and unresolved disappearance of Abdul Rahman’s former wife, who remained in AROPL after their divorce and went missing on a trip to India. Abdul Rahman suspects foul play on the part of his brother’s organization.
How did they wind up in England? Abdullah Hashem himself is Egyptian-American, and started his cult in Cairo. They moved from there to Germany and then Sweden, before the deported from the latter and settling in Crewe. AROPL also filed as a non-profit in the US, and thus seems to plan on expanding its reach here.
While Hashem’s Mahdism borrows from both Twelver Shi’i and Sunni doctrines and hadiths, a number of its teachings run afoul of mainstream Muslim ones: “alcohol is permissible, women don’t have to wear the hijab and the LGBTQ+ community are welcomed.”
Can we see Hashem’s weird religion as a kinder, gentler Islam? Well, I perused some of Hashem’s voluminous teachings, particularly the ones on Jesus. Like mainstream Islam, Hashem denies that Jesus was crucified, rejects that He rose from the dead, and rebuffs the Triune God. (Incidentally, he draws heavily upon Gnostic heresies from the early church to do so.) He’s clearly a type of antichrist, as St. John described (I John 2:22), preaching another “Gospel”—which St. Paul cautioned against (Galatian 1:8). Most importantly, Christ Himself warned us that when He returns it will be obvious to the whole world: “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (St. Matthew’s Gospel 24: 26, 27). So the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, while less violent than other Islamic messianic movements in history, is still a false, satanic epigone of the true faith once for all handed to the saints: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, crucified and resurrected, triumphing over sin, death and the devils.
