The Shocking Truth Behind The Self-Proclaimed Mahdi!

Abdullah Hashem, a man claiming to be the prophesied savior of mankind, is actually a con artist and cult leader. He uses religious language and charisma to manipulate people into believing he’s a divine messenger. Despite his claims, both Islamic and Christian teachings provide clear signs that he is not who he says he is. His tactics, such as claiming exclusive truth and self-appointed authority, are classic strategies used by cult leaders.
The text discusses a cult leader who manipulates his followers by claiming to have divine authority, using fear of doomsday, and twisting religious scriptures for his own benefit. He isolates his followers from outside influences, creating an ‘us versus them’ mentality. The leader’s tactics are compared to notorious cult leaders like Jim Jones, warning that such manipulation can lead to tragic outcomes. The text urges caution and discernment to avoid falling prey to such deceptive practices.
This text warns about the dangers of blindly following cult leaders like David Koresh and Jim Jones, who manipulated their followers with false prophecies and isolated them from the outside world. It emphasizes that salvation comes from faith in Jesus Christ, not from any human. The text also dismisses claims that a certain individual could be the Antichrist, labeling him instead as a scam artist exploiting religious beliefs for personal gain. It urges people to recognize and expose such deceitful practices to prevent further harm.

Then, if anyone tells you, look, there’s the Messiah, or there he is, do not believe it. Matthew 24-23 So there’s something strange about this man, Abdullah Hashem. He’s a man who is boldly proclaiming himself to be the quote, long-awaited savior of mankind, the promised Mahdi of Islamic prophecy. He claims to be the riser from the Prophet Muhammad’s lineage, and even the successor of Jesus Christ himself. And for some reason, people are actually believing this. And I think I figured out why. And no, it’s not because he is the Mahdi. It’s not because he’s a prophet.

No, it’s far darker than that. Incredibly, on his own YouTube channel, he’s even crowned himself as the one true legitimate pope for Christians. To his followers, in the newly formed a Mahdi religion of peace and light, Abdullah Hashem is the quote, unquote, divine messenger sent to establish God’s kingdom on earth. But behind these grand claims and these grand titles, we can easily point out that he’s not anything that he claims, and he’s simply just a con artist. He’s a cult leader. He’s scamming people. And this is nothing new, it’s been happening for a very long time.

People have been doing this same exact thing for a long time. And he is nothing different. He presents himself as a polished, charismatic person. In his videos, he veers to be soft spoken, even humble about his destiny. He often says that he was shocked when he was told that he was the Mahdi. But don’t be fooled, everybody. This self proclamation of being the Messiah has carefully crafted his persona in order to gain the trust of unsuspecting people. He uses religious language to love bomb the seekers for desperate for meaning people who are desperate for meaning people who are desperate for community, desperate to feel like they belong.

He grabs these people and he manipulates them. And then he claims to have authority over their souls. With a straight face, he asserts that God has appointed him infallible, the perfect guide who cannot be wrong. He preaches that the entire world must obey him as the Mahdi or face divine punishment. Guys, it should be obvious, okay, but these are not the words of a genuine prophet. These are not the words of somebody who comes from God. These are the words of a scammer, a scammer in prophetic clothing, a cult leader.

This is classic cult leader mentality. There’s nothing different here between him and people like Jim Jones and David Koresh, but we’ll get into that in just a minute. So there’s something about him that a lot of people don’t realize that in 2005, he infiltrated a rallying UFO cult seminar under false pretenses and filmed it for a quote-unquote documentary. Well, guess what? He was sued for that because he had no permission to film this quote-unquote documentary and the US federal court actually found him guilty. The federal court found that he lied about the railions, exaggerating, distorting footage and basically sensationalized his film.

The court even noted that he attempted extortion using the footage unethically until legal action forced him to return it. This is our first glimpse at his pattern of at him presenting himself as a truth seeker while fabricating stories for personal gain. It’s exactly what he’s doing now and he has a history of doing it. If he was willing to lie, cheat and steal for a student film, imagine what he’s willing to do now with an entire cult at his command. Fast forward to 2015, he resurfaces, but now he’s draped in religious prophecy.

After a stint following another Mahdi claimant in the Middle East, he breaks away and announced that he is the chosen Mahdi, not the guy that he was following. It turns out that he was the real Mahdi and the other Mahdi was just a fake Mahdi. He founds his religion, the religion of quote-unquote peace and light, and begins gathering devotees. From day one, his claims have been outrageous. He prays on Islamic apocalyptic hopes, saying that when the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died in 2015, it fulfilled the Hadith prophecy and signaled his emergence as the Mahdi.

Conveniently, Hashem’s group was the only religion to proclaim the Mahdi’s appearance on that day. A self-congratulatory prophecy fulfillment, in my opinion. So much so that nobody outside of his circle even noticed it. It’s a self-fulfilling scam. He declares a prophecy it’s fulfilled because he decided to fulfill it himself. By this logic, anybody can read an old prophecy and think, that’s me, but the goable followers took this as proof. He just created the whole thing, he made it up, and they believe it’s proof. This is what’s dangerous about following what a person says rather than what scripture says.

This person is literally scamming people into believing that he’s some sort of prophet from God, based on his own words and his own actions. In reality, mainstream Islamic scholars and leaders utterly reject Hashem’s claims. In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi’s arrival is recognized through a consensus of scholars and clear signs, not via some random TikTok or YouTube proclamation, okay? This guy is out there on left field all by himself claiming to be something when the entire Islamic world is like, no, wait, this guy’s a joke. Why would you listen to him? The Mahdi is never supposed to claim to be Jesus himself.

Islamic tradition holds that Jesus returns as a separate figure to support the Mahdi, not that one man will be both. So he’s got his own eschatology all twisted up and backwards. By declaring himself to be both the Mahdi and the return Christ, which obviously we know as Christians that that’s just a laughable claim in and of itself. It doesn’t even deserve an explanation. By doing this though, he immediately violates the core Islamic teachings and he exposes himself as a fraud in the eyes of all Orthodox Muslims worldwide. Similarly, Christians know that anybody claiming to be Christ’s successor or the second coming on social media is a deceiver.

He’s a liar. He’s a deceiver. The Bible even tells us, for many will come in my name, claiming I am the Messiah and will deceive many. Matthew 24 5. Jesus explicitly warned about people like him. If anybody says to you, look, here’s the Christ, there he is. Do not believe it. Matthew 24 3. In other words, both Islam and Christianity provide clear red flags that this man is not who he says he is. The evidence overwhelmingly points to him being a scammer and a cult leader. Even an old high school acquaintance of Hashem recognized it.

This former classmate who saw his transformation over the years bluntly calls the religion that he created, quote, their newest religious scam, describing it as his own cult. Ironically, the classmate recalls that after high school, Hashem was involved in anti-cult activism and studied all the intricacies of cult groups. Now he took that knowledge and used it, used it as a weapon against his own followers, against his own people, to start his own cult. He learned from the best how cults work, how they operate, and he banned his own personal agenda.

He weaponized it. It’s the same thing as a criminal or a serial killer getting a doctorate in criminal justice and then using what he learned for his own benefit in order to further his criminal activities. There’s no difference. His movement displays textbook cult tactics. This isn’t a peaceful spiritual community, no. It’s a tightly controlled operation built on manipulation, fear, and misinformation. He prays on people who are looking to fit in. He prays on those that are weaker than him. Let’s break down how he maintains power over his followers. So one of the ways is he has these exclusive claims of truth.

He teaches that 99% of all what religion preaches is false, including 99% of Islam. But only he has the truth, that only God told him how to form this new religion, that he is the special one, and that everybody else is just dumb. I mean that alone should be a red flag for people, okay? He states that Islam is false and that his new version of Islam is almost entirely different. This is not new, okay? Cult leaders have been doing this since time immemorial. They’ve been saying that everybody else is wrong and they’re the only ones that are right.

And to follow him and then you’ll be right too. This rhetoric is designed to isolate followers from their previous faiths and communities. And if you accept his teaching, by default you have to conclude that everything you knew in your previous life is 99% wrong. So you have to cut those ties and only trust him, because he’s the only person in the world who knows what’s going on. This is classic cult strategy, everybody. Everybody else is wrong, we alone have the truth. There’s nothing new here. He also has self-appointed authority and infallibility.

Cult leaders often describe themselves to be above questioning. They declare themselves to be the truth. Then Hashem does exactly this by asserting that he is infallible. In his religion’s literature, he is likened to the Pope, except unlike Catholic popes, who are only considered infallible in very specific contexts, Hashem views it that everything he does is beyond error, that he cannot make a mistake, that it’s impossible. He effectively says, I cannot be wrong, God speaks to truth through me directly. And to his followers this shuts down their ability to utilize logic and critical thinking.

Because if you utilize logic and critical thinking in these contexts, what happens? Well, you can’t do that because God told me that you’re wrong, okay? Again, classic cult behavior. And it should be a red flag to everybody. If anybody doubts him on any point he makes, they’re the ones wrong. Because remember, he’s the only one in the world that’s right, everybody else is a jerk, okay? He also uses doomsday fear and threats. Okay, so on this channel we talk about Bible prophecy a lot, and this is a totally different thing.

One of Hashem’s viral videos had him demanding the world’s obedience, especially in the West, under the threat of a divine punishment. He reminds his followers that we are in the end times, implying that those who don’t accept him will face horrible consequences when God’s wrath comes. Again, the Bible warned us about this. People like this are going to show up and claim all these crazy claims, but we’re told to just ignore them, to not believe them. And here’s the thing, by coupling his recruitment with apocalyptic fear, he pressures vulnerable people to join and to stay loyal so that they don’t miss the ark and be damned.

See guys, this is very extreme predatory behavior because the Bible tells us that when Jesus does return, it’s the best thing that could ever happen to this world. It’s not something scary, nobody’s scared of it. No, it’s the Lord returning, that’s amazing. Sure, he vanquishes his enemies and he conquers evil, but how can anybody see that as a negative thing? So to scare people, oh, the end of the world is coming, be scared. That’s just manipulation at its finest. You see, this fear-driven rhetoric, it’s a hallmark of destructive cults. Followers are told that leaving the group or disobeying the leader means not just personal failure, but cosmic disaster for their souls.

If you don’t follow this person, you’re going to go to hell and this blatantly contradicts scripture. It blatantly contradicts what the Bible has been saying for thousands of years. It contradicts exactly what Jesus Christ himself said. Another thing he does is he likes to take scripture and twist it for his own purpose. He likes to pretend he’s uncovered these secret mysteries that only he can figure out. He also entices recruits by claiming to answer questions nobody else can answer, providing esoteric interpretations for scriptures and prophecies. He published this fake gospel-like book called The Goal of the Wise and runs a channel called The Mahdi Has Appeared.

And on this channel, he gives lengthy answers on religious mysteries that he just creates out of his own head. He just makes all the stuff up. And to the unsuspecting people, to the uninformed people, it gives the impression that he possesses secret knowledge, when in fact, he’s just making this stuff up. He’s just pulling off the top of his head. And most of the time, it doesn’t make any sense. And it’s no secret that in reality, he’s just cherry picking obscure prophecies to bend their meaning to suit his own gains.

As one apologetics watchdog, UK apologetics library.net states, quote, he demonstrates key signs of a cult leader, self appointed authority, doomsday threats, scriptural manipulation, and the desire for control, end quote, you see, it’s no secret that he’s a cult leader, and he’s just making stuff up. And it’s pretty dangerous if you ask me because what happened in Jonestown? What did Jim Jones do? Now let’s hope and pray that it doesn’t go that far. But this whole situation is frightening. He also uses the us versus them mentality. He constantly vilifies traditional religious authorities.

He teaches that today’s mosques, churches and scholars are utterly misguided, or even false prophets inspiring to hide the truth. Yeah, reading the Bible is conspiring to hide the truth. Give me a break, buddy. For instance, he preaches that all current Muslims are in error, and they’re the enemies of the Mahdi. And for some reason, people believe that one of his group slogans is literally the scholars are the enemy. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up guys. And what he does is by painting outsiders, scholars, people who actually know what they’re talking about by painting them as agents of deception, he cuts off his followers from any guidance or reality check except for when it comes from him.

How convenient, right? Oh, don’t listen to these people who actually know what they’re talking about. Listen to me because I said I’m right. They’re wrong. I mean, that’s what like a first grader does, right? I’m rubber your glue. I mean, it’s the same thing. And here’s the thing. If a follower’s family warns the follower that hey, this looks like a cult, the follower has been pre primed to think of course they would say that because 99% of religion is false. And everybody’s against us because we’re from God and everybody else isn’t.

By doing this, he insulates his flock in a bubble of his own making. It’s a hallmark of high control cults. It’s exactly what Jim Jones did in Jonestown. There’s no difference here, guys. You find vulnerable people who are desperate to fit in desperate for community desperate to feel like they belong in this world. And you tell them everything that they need to know in order to feel like they do belong. And you keep doing this over time until they feel like that this place this cult is the only place that they belong.

And they will do anything. And here’s another thing, guys. He uses the name peace and light. And it’s a shield. It’s a mask because I mean, logically, right? Who can come against peace and light? Objectively, however, you have to remember the Bible’s warning because Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. That’s in Second Corinthians 1114. By choosing the name peace and light, it plays directly into the deception that the Bible warns us about. It lulls people into a false sense of security into assuming good intentions. Meanwhile, former members and observers describe the group’s operations as cloak and dagger, secretive and deeply suspicious.

They frequently relocate from their bases from Germany to Sweden and now in the UK and guard their inner workings very closely. Good luck finding transparent answers about their finances or decision making is all kept within an inner circle. And in fact, Hashem longtime best friend and deputy Joseph McGowan has been at his side since the railings scam days, suggesting that a tight knit leadership with a shared history of grift, the veneer of peace and light makes it harder for potential recruits to recognize the danger. But we all know we can see through this.

We can use discernment and realize that he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Everybody familiar with cult dynamics knows these tactics. One detailed expose again at UK apologetics library says quote this pattern is clear. Manipulative charisma, fear driven rhetoric and spiritual distortion. Abdullah’s Hisham movement checks every box. It claims exclusive revelation redefines core beliefs and demands absolute obedience. And not only that it distorts scripture for personal gain groups like this guys, you know this. They don’t liberate souls. They enslave them. They enslave people by convincing the victims that they’re the ones being saved.

And you know, obviously he’s not the first person to do this. His playbook matches the playbook of Jim Jones, David Koresh and other notorious cult leaders that people know about. And if we compare these things, we can see that his movement is nothing new and it’s literally just history repeating itself again. History tells us that these stories do not end well, right? Jim Jones, the prophet of Jonestown, he led a thousand people into the remote jungles of Guyana in the 1970s. He promised a socialist utopia free from the corruption of the outside world.

He called for them all to end themselves and they did. Over 900 men, women and children lost their lives on that day on the orders of Jim Jones, the supposed prophet from God and one of the saddest moments that anybody can think of. Think about it. 900 men, women and children. This is a tragedy beyond measure everybody. And Jim Jones himself, he styled himself as a messiah figure to his people, just like this guy. And they paid it with their lives. Entire families and bloodlines were wiped off of the face of the earth because this guy thought of himself as a messiah.

It’s devastating, it’s terrible. And while this man, Hashem, may not be stockpiling poison, that we know of at least, the psychological grip he aims for is exactly the same that Jim Jones did. He wants his followers to do anything he says, everything he says, even if it defies all logic and self-preservation. If hundreds of people are willing to abandon their home and even face persecution at the borders, one shudders to think what they might do at his command. Jim Jones started off as this benevolent cult leader with devotion and communal ideas, with peace and love and happiness and harmony.

And what happened? It ended in tragedy and ended in coffins. This is a stark warning everybody. How blind obedience to a false savior can be literally lethal. Now what about David Koresh, the sinful messiah of Waco? And you know what happened at Waco was a tragedy. The government burned that building and everybody inside, it was terrible. But when you look at David Koresh himself, he was a cult leader. In the 80s and 90s, he took over a religious sect called the Branch Davidian to claim that he alone could unlock the secrets of the Book of Revelation.

Again, that everybody else in the world was a jerk and he was the only one who knew what he was talking about. To his followers, Koresh styled himself as the Lamb of God, almost a Christ-like figure who could do no wrong. He demanded his male followers surrender their wives to him and even took girls as young as 12 as his quote-unquote wives, claiming it was God’s will. He built an armory and prepared people for an apocalyptic showdown and ended horrifically. The government burned the building down with everybody inside and 75 of his followers, including himself, lost their lives in that terrible, terrible incident.

But why are we talking about this horror? Why are we talking about the horrors of these cult leaders? Well, it’s because the manipulation that David Koresh and Jim Jones demonstrated are mirrored by Hashem in key ways. Koresh and Jones both twisted biblical prophecies to convince followers that only he could save them in the end times. As a side note, those of us who read the Bible know that who saves us in the end times is Jesus Christ himself, because all you have to do is trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when these things do happen, it’s God that saves you, it’s Jesus, it’s not any human.

David Koresh and Jim Jones, they both isolated their groups from the outsiders. Just like Hashem does, Hashem dreams of a quote-unquote divine, just state where only his religious law rules, an isolated kingdom of his own. And Hashem likewise threatens divine wrath on those who disobey. And again, this goes 100% against what the Bible says. We all know there is no fearing the apocalypse. As the Bible states over and over again about the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord is a great and terrible day. It’s great for believers, it’s great for those who are in Christ and it’s terrible for those who are not.

It doesn’t talk about following some guy who’s going to save you from the flames. No, you’re either in Christ or you’re not. It’s that simple. And one of the most obvious connections to David Koresh and Jim Jones is these titles that they claim. They don’t just claim they were prophets, they claim that they were insulated, that they were Christ’s returned in some form, the Lamb of God. And it’s not just him, guys. There’s been other people who’ve claimed themselves to be the Mahdi or Messiahs in history. I mean, I’m not trying to knock anybody with mental illness, because mental illness is a serious thing here, guys.

It really is. And one of the most common threads among people with mental illness and mental disabilities is the fact that they have a messianic complex. A lot of them claim themselves to be a Messiah, claim themselves to be Jesus. It’s not an uncommon thing. And I want to be clear, okay? Comparing Hashem to Jim Jones and David Koresh, it’s not hyperbole. It’s a sober warning. Each of these men started out in the exact same way. They claimed divine appointment and demanded loyalty amongst their followers. Each isolated their followers from competing voices. They said, everybody else is a jerk, and we’re the only ones who know what we’re talking about.

Each of these people created an atmosphere of impending doom that only obedience to the Messiah could avert, and each ended in tragedy. It’s heartbreaking. It really is. It breaks my heart to see these beautiful people get suckered into this man’s con. All it is is history repeating itself. Now I want to talk about a different aspect of this that some people are saying. Some people are saying that he could be the Antichrist himself. The manifestation of this end times deceiver of the man of sin that’s foretold in scriptures. In my opinion, this man, like I said, he’s a scam artist.

He’s a con artist. He’s a cult leader. He’s not anything special. Just like I’m not anything special. Just like people listening to this, nobody’s anything special. We’re all just regular people here. There’s only one special person who’s ever lived in this Jesus Christ. Even the prophets in the Bible didn’t see themselves as special. They’re just regular guys who were following what the Lord had him do. Totally opposite from what this guy’s doing. So no, I don’t believe he’s the Antichrist. I believe he’s just a scam artist. He’s just a con man, and he’s using these ideas to gain followers.

This story is definitely a cautionary tale. It’s the story of a cult leader who has donned the mantle of the Mahdi and even the titles of the church to enrich himself in power and ego. It’s the story of a man who started as a prankster and a fraudster and learned the art of cultism and then utilized that knowledge as a weapon against his followers. It’s a story that needs to be told so that others do not fall for the same trap. People need to recognize this man for what he really is. In the Bible, we can look at Ephesians 5.11, and it urges us to have nothing to do with these fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

We have a duty to speak up before more lives are destroyed. And remember what Paul said in Galatians 1.8. Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. So this man is accursed by very definition, and we shouldn’t believe anything he says. His gospel is contrary to the gospel of Christ. Let us pray that the people, the good people, the beautiful people that are caught up in this can still be saved from it. That they can be saved from harm, that they can be rescued out of this terrible, terrible cult.

Rescued both physically and spiritually. They deserve our compassion, guys. These are just people who want to belong. They want to feel like they belong to something. And we all can relate to that because we all want to belong to something. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. That’s part of our nature as humans. We don’t want to be isolated. We want to be part of something. So I want to thank you all for watching. We’ll see you next time. God bless you all. [tr:trw].