Day 29

"He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd..." (Mark 6:34)

Who are the Shi"as (Shi'ites)?

The first three caliphas (successors) of Mohammed were chosen from the larger M community. The fourth one was Ali, Mohammed's nephew and son-in-law who had been married to Mohammed's daughter Fatima many years before. Ali was able to maintain his position briefly before he was murdered in AD 661. The Shi'as believe that the rightful rulers of the M community worldwide were actually Ali and his eleven descendants through Mohanned's grandson Hussein, who died as a martyr in Iraq in AD 680. A majority of Shi'as believe that Hussein's line of succession continued till his descendant Mohammed al-Mahdi, the twelfth "rightly guided Imam," mysteriously disappeared beginning in AD 874 at the age of five. He was supposedly accessible to certain people till AD 941. After that the Shi'a hope for ruling the M community was totally transferred to the unseen world from which a hidden spiritual guide-called the Hidden Imam (leader) of Mahdi (the one who guides), will eventually return.

• Worship the L in song. Proclaim J sovereignty to the ends of the earth using Psalm 72:5-8, 12-14.


• P-ay for open doors into the lives of the Tanzanians on order that believers might find opportunities to share J with them.


• P-ay for workers among the Ms.