Less than three weeks into 2008, yet another violent Mahdist movement has erupted, again in Iraq:

The Muslim community in Swanlea, U.K., is sponsoring a public lecture--aimed at the youth--on the imminent appearance of the Mahdi and the Dajjal (the "Deceiver," or antichrist figure, in Islam):


Observations:
1) Once again, the conventional wisdom that only Shi`ism holds Mahdist belief is demonstrated to be false, since this community appears to be a Sunni one: "these stories [of the Dajjal and the Mehdi {Mahdi}] are not fairy tales."
2) That said, the Mahdi envisioned here would seem to be more concerned with moral behavior--being opposed to alcohol, drugs, male/female "relationships," disobedience--than with creating a global caliphate and destroying Israel and the U.S.  At least in the beginning of his ministry....
3) The Mahdist expert is the "revert"--that is, convert--Hamza Tzortzis.  His blog (http://hamzatzortzis.blogspot.com/) indicates that he is not of the Salafist/jihadist tradition, but it also contains a long article on the centrality of the caliphate to the Muslim community (my next book will be on the caliphate and on modern attempts to resurrect, I should note).

It seems that Adnan Oktar, the head of the Turkish neo-Mahdist sect on which I commented yesterday (as well as several other times previously), thinks not only that the Mahdi is about to come--but that he himself IS the Mahdi!  This is according to an Edip Yuksel, a Turkish blogger who says he used to be involved with Oktar's movement and knows him personally:
http://whoisharunyahya.wordpress.com/harun-yahya-or-adnan-oktar-the-promised-mahdi/ :
"Adnan Oktar strongly believes that he is the MAHDI (the Sunni and Shiite imitation of Messiah) and he has a powerful charisma, the pool of unlimited gullible rich people and a market of more than a billion individuals easily impressed by the work of his followers...."
In my earlier post on this I speculated as to whether Oktar's influence might extend to members or even leaders of the ruling AK Party in Turkey.  If Yuksel's post is accurate, there would seem to be little doubt of that.  I plan to do a more detailed analysis of Adnan Oktar's alleged Mahdist claims soon.
Thanks to Charles Cameron for alerting me to this; and check out his extremely valuable and interesting site: http://holywarfare.wordpress.com/

The ubiquitous Adnan Oktar, a Turkish Sunni Muslim "mediavangelist," has recently posted two new articles on the Mahdi on on his pseudonymous website Harun Yahya. Not only is the Mahdi's appearance, as (allegedly) described in the Qur'an, nigh (http://harunyahya.com/articles/coming_of_mahdi.php) but--and we can all
breathe a sigh of relief at this--he will be a much more peaceful chap than most
commentators have imagined he would be (http://harunyahya.com/articles/mehdi_oppose_terror.php).
Observations:
1) Oktar has to engage in strained Qur'anic exegesis to "prove" the Mahdi from Islam's holy book.  Read the alleged proof texts for yourself, at the aformentioned site.  In reality, the Mahdi is truly only described in Hadiths ("traditions" or "sayings" attributed to Muhammad), and even then only in three of the six major Sunni collections (Abu Da'ud, Ibn Majah and Ibn al-Tirmidhi), NOT in the most authoritative ones (al-Bukhari, Muslim)--which is one major reason that skepticism regarding the future historicity of the Mahdi exists in some parts of the Sunni world (although not, of course, in Shi`ism). 
2) As I've remarked before, the prominence of such overt Mahdist belief in TURKISH SUNNI ISLAM is yet another nail in the conventional wisdom coffin which holds that only Shi`i Islam adheres to a strong belief in Mahdism.
3) Although we infidels can be thankful that the Mahdi espoused by Oktar is not the violent warlord usually posited--examples of which can be found operative in Islamic history from Ibn Tumart  (Morocco, 12th c. CE) to Muhammad al-Qahtani (Sa`udi Arabia, 20th c. CE)--how much solace is there in that, considering that the end result is the same: the global triumph of Islam.
4) Oktar's exegesis that the Mahdi will emerge from Istanbul might be seen benignly as a bone thrown to his Turkish supporters; OR it might also be seen, more ominously, as evidence of a growing convergence between his brand of neo-eschatological Islam and the larger Turkish Muslim scene, almost certainly even including members of the Islamist  Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi
(Justice and Development Party), or AK Party. 
.: All-in-all, the Mahdism of Harun Yahya is much preferable to that of, say, the Jaysh al-Mahdi, Ahmadinejad or some elements of al-Qa`idah.  But will it remain pacific?