The similarities between Imam Mahdi and the Divine Prophets in the Holy Quran

Imam Mahdi is the consummating element for the goals of all the prophets, and the era of his presence would be the realization of the ultimate purpose of creation; thus, his existence is tacitly mentioned in the Quran in various forms. In the Quran, God sometimes directly speaks of the future of human life on the Earth, which coincides with the emergence of Imam Mahdi. In other times, God refers to analogies of the phenomena in the nature, which indirectly mentions the position of the Imam Mahdi. Also, when God explains the history of the prophets of the people of old times, notes about Imam Mahdi and the messages he emphasizes for the human can be discerned. For many reasons in Quran and Hadith, many of the facts about Mahdi can also be fund in the story-like verses of Quran and many similarities between Imam Mahdi and the prophets can be found. In this study, eight of these similarities are explained. With some reflection on those verses, the inferred similarities between Imam Mahdi and Prophets include the secrecy of their birth, longevity (long life), the absence, discords and problems on the verge of emergence, separation of the righteous from wrong-doers of the era, punishment of the wrong-doers and salvation of the righteous people as well as formation of a society for righteous people.