Imam Ali Naqi (al Hadi) the 10th imam of Shia Islam

[Shia Islam]

Check out this video on YouTube:


Ali Naqi, the 10th Imam of Shia Islam - YouTube

[arthra]

I checked it out...speaking personally as a Baha'i

(1) the person on the youtube does not represent Baha'is in any official capacity.. He belongs to a small group that has made spurious claims to leadership in the Baha'i community without the support of the vast majority of Baha'is.

(2) The quality of the presentation leaves much to be desired...there are much better presentations available..

The Baha'i International Community has provided the following historical framework which explains some of the origins of the Baha'i Faith:

By A.D. 661, only 29 years after Muhammad's death, power in the Muslim world fell into the hands of the first of a series of dynastic rulers, theoretically elected by the faithful, but in fact representing the dominance of various powerful families. The first two of these Sunni dynasties, the Umayyads and the Abbasids, saw the Imams as a challenge to their own legitimacy. Consequently, according to Shiah accounts, one Imam after another was put to death, beginning with Hasan and Husayn, grandsons of Muhammad. These Imams, or descendants of the Prophet, came in time to be regarded by Shiah Islam as saints and martyrs.

Although Shiah Islam began among the Arabs, it reached its greatest influence in Persia. From the beginning, the Persian converts to Islam were attracted by the idea of the Imam as a divinely appointed leader. Unlike the Arabs, the Persians possessed a long heritage of government by a divinely appointed monarch, and the devotion that gathered around this figure in time came to focus on the person of the Prophet's descendants and appointed successors. After centuries of oppression by Sunni caliphs, the tradition of the Imamate eventually triumphed in Persia through the rise of a strongly Shiah dynasty, the Safavids, in the sixteenth century.

By this time, however, the line of Imams had ended. One of the features of Iranian Shiah tradition is that, in the year 873, the twelfth and last appointed Imam--only a child at the time--withdrew into "concealment" in order to escape the fate of his predecessors. It is believed that he will emerge "at the time of the end" to usher in a reign of justice throughout the world. This eschatological tradition (doctrine of "last things") has much in common with the Christian expectation of the return of Christ and Mahayana Buddhism's promise of the advent of Maitreya Buddha, "the Buddha of universal righteousness." Among other titles Muslims have assigned to this promised deliverer, the "Hidden Imam," are Mahdi (the Guided One) and Qa'im (He Who Will Arise i.e., from the family of the Prophet).

For the complete article see:

Historical Context of the Bábi and Bahá'í Faiths

[Shia Islam]

Originally Posted by arthra

I checked it out...speaking personally as a Baha'i
...

thanks for your input.

Here is the same speaker talking about the 9th Shia imam


Muhammad Taqi, the 9th Imam - YouTube

[Shia Islam]

I have previously posted a thread containing the following video from the same speaker. It was deleted because it seems that I posted it in the wrong forum. Here it is:


The 14 Infallibles of Shia Islam, an Orthodox Baha'i View - YouTube