Reviewing and Criticizing David Cook's views on the Subject of Mahdism and Islamic End of Time

Considering the apocalyptic topics and events of the end of the time from the viewpoint of different religions and schools has been one of the interesting research areas for the scholars especially in recent years. Some Western scholars have expressed some fascinating perspectives with the focus on the Islam’s apocalyptic view and its relation to the appearance of the Islamic savior (Mahdi). Among these people is David Cook who has written several works in this field and his views have been the reference of other scholars in this field. The purpose of this article is introducing the character, works, and views of this Western researcher about the end of Time in Islam’s view, especially the issues related to the Islamic savior (Mahdi). In this article, the features of the Islamic savior, the Shi’a’s specific look at the apocalypse and the savior, the saviorism in Iran and other Shiite countries, the Qur’ans view of the end of time topics, the modern discourse of the apocalypse among the Muslims and the similarities of the Islamic and Christian apocalyptic view in the works of this researcher have been examined. The assessment of the positive and negative components of Cook’s research, along with the critique of his most important misconceptions in this regard, is the other topic discussed in this paper. The research method of this paper is library-software based and the paper is written based on a descriptive-analytic view.