The Apparent and Hidden in Orientalist Perspectives on Mahdism

From the outset, Orientalists expended great efforts to destroy the image of Islam and the Qurʾān, which was motivated by a number of goals including propaganda, colonial designs, scientific and economic subjugation etc. However, it was only after the uprising of the Sudanese Mahdi against the Egyptian and British armies that a movement was formed wherein certain orientalists, such as Darmstetter, portrayed the concept of Mahdiism as mere mythology and part of Islamic Messianism, while individuals such as Henry Corbin and Van Fluaton propounded the concept of Mahdism from the standpoint of Shīʿī Islam. This article critically reviews these different perspectives. In this paper, an analytical-descriptive method is employed and resources are collected and studied from available written sources.