Hope, Messiah and troubles of messianic futures in Iran: exploring martyrdom and politics of hope amongst the Iranian revolutionary youth

Hope for a messianic future and the Messiah’s return emerge from
everyday life negotiations of some Iranians within the Islamic
Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic has co-opted the religion,
messianic hope and the Messiah to build a mode of religious
governance and to maintain pro-regime families and the revolu-
tionary youth. I will demonstrate politics of hope in Iran and argue
that subscribing to the messianic hope by pro-regime families may
appear as a religious expression of futurity or compliance with the
Islamic Republic at first glance. However, messianic hope is a mode
of world-making to endure militancy, militarization of everyday life,
political Islam and the pain caused by a stream of dead bodies
coming from different conflict zones. This article builds on the
existing debates of hope to show how the reality of ‘the future’
becomes messianic for Shia believers and how social actors carving
hope amidst precarities is not an orientation towards the future but
rather a mode of making-do.