Arba'in — Page 25
Number Two 25 be the one to reinstate belief in God Almighty through Signs, and he be the one to bring back the faith that had departed [from the earth] to the heavens through Signs because this is also an essential quality of being a Mahdi. It is necessary for the Mahdi that he should be the Adam of the time in every sense. The true and perfect Mahdi was neither Moses—for he had read the scriptures of Abraham and others—nor ‘ I s a [ Jesus], since he had studied the Torah and the Books of the Prophets. The true and perfect Mahdi in the world is only one—that is, Muhammad Mu st af a [the Chosen One], may peace and blessings of Allah be on him—who was completely unlettered. In the same way, the present age in which we dwell demands a Messiah, because thou- sands of spiritual diseases have developed during this age. Hence, there is a dire need to cure them all through Itm a m-e- H ujjah [conveying conclusive arguments]. The clear, manifest difference between the Mahdi and the Messiah is that for the Mahdi it is necessary that he should be the Adam of the age and in his time the world should have become completely corrupted and there should be none from among humanity who should be his teacher or mentor in the spiritual sciences. Indeed there should not even be present among humanity any pos- sessing such ability; only God should have taught him the mysteries and sciences as was the case with Adam. The meaning of Messiah, however, is only that he be the