The reason for the short disappearance of Imam Mahdi (AJ)

“In The Name of God, The Beneficent, The Merciful”

The reason for the short disappearance of Imam Mahdi (AJ)

Imam Mahdi (AJ) had a short and a long disappearance. Why is that? It is narrated that Imam Hassan Askari (A) showed his son (Imam Mahdi (AJ)) to about 40 close followers. The Imam’s short disappearance was 69 years (from the martyrdom of his father). During these years, Imam Mahdi (AJ) had letter communication with his followers by his representatives. Usually, Imam was shown a miracle or marvel through his correspondence with his followers. For example, once one of the followers wrote a letter to the Imam and asked many questions but forgot to add a key question. The Imam replied to all questions and also wrote that about the question you forgot to ask, here is the answer. In another correspondence, Imam wrote a letter to one of his followers, “about the money that you gathered from people and sent us, returned is XX amount which belongs to a specific person that we do not accept his money because there is a problem with it. These small miracles were proof that Shia followers believe in the existence of the Imam. Shia followers might have doubted Imam’s existence if the Imam went the long disappearance at once. The reason for the Imam’s short disappearance was to prove Imam’s existence to his followers. Assignees were gathering questions from the followers in different places and gave them to the Imam’s representative and Imam gave the reply to the letters and the Imam’s representative returned them to the assignees. So, the philosophy of the short disappearance was for the Shias to be sure of the existence of the disappeared Imam.

Muhammad Mahdi Me’marian