Ahmadinejad gives a clear indication of the apocalyptic, mystical terms in which he views Iran's nuclear and political ambitions. No doubt the State Department will rush to discount such talk and formulate proposals for appeasing him and buying him off. "Iran president paves the way for arabs' imam return," from Reuters, with thanks to Rick:
His call for the destruction of Israel may have grabbed headlines abroad, but it is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's devotion to a mystical religious figure that is arousing greater interest inside Iran.In a keynote speech on Wednesday to senior clerics, Ahmadinejad spoke of his strong belief in the second coming of Shi'ite Muslims' "hidden" 12th Imam.
According to Shi'ite Muslim teaching, Abul-Qassem Mohammad, the 12th leader whom Shi'ites consider descended from the Prophet Mohammed, disappeared in 941 but will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.
"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.
"Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society."
"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return. We should avoid copying the West's policies and systems," he added, newspapers and local news agencies reported.
Ahmadinejad refers to the return of the 12th Imam, also known as the Mahdi, in almost all his major speeches since he took office in August.
A September address to the U.N. General Assembly contained long passages on the Mahdi which confused Western diplomats and irked those from Sunni Muslim countries who believe in a different line of succession from Mohammed.
This fascination has prompted wild stories to circulate.
Presidential aides have denied a popular rumor that he ordered his cabinet to write a letter to the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom where thousands of pilgrims come each week to pray and drop messages to the Imam.
But what really has tongues wagging is the possibility that Ahmadinejad's belief in the 12th Imam's return may be linked to the supposed growing influence of a secretive society devoted to the Mahdi which was banned in the early 1980s.
Founded in 1953 and used by the Shah of Iran to try to eradicate followers of the Bahai faith, the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth.
Ahmadinejad, who is only the second non-cleric to become president since the revolution, has made clear his immense respect for Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, a deeply conservative cleric with close ties to the Hojjatieh-founded Haqqani theological school in Qom.
Secret societies... feh. I'll bet they meet on Jekyll Island also.
Today’s Extras on Jihad’s 5th Column:
Phyllis Chesler:
http://www.nationalreview.com/blyth/blyth200512010818.asp
What you aren’t hearing in the War on Terror:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/SteveMuscatello/2005/12/02/177487.html
Recruiting foreign (American?) volunteers to replace palestinian aggressors:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20364
A fairly good synopsis of the islamic attack on Free Speech:
http://www.discoverthenetwork.com/Articles/chbckjajklkk.html
"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return."
-Get ready everybody for a return to the 10th century, Islam style.
And without missing a beat,
"the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth." -the more death, suicide bombings, terrorist attacks, the closer we all get to the Islamic end of days.
Isn't it interesting that Islam has its own little-known version of the Messianic era, of course to get there they must CREATE chaos.
The President of the Iranimal Kingdom is a certifiable nut job. His ramblings get more ridiculous every time he has center stage.
It was reported last year that Moqtada al-Sadr's followers were chanting about the impending arrival of the Mahdi. Nothing strange there. To be expected. One wonders if those schemers and dreamers in the Pentagon took notice, or if they took notice, what they made of that, or if they made or tried to make something of that, if they knew what the word "Mahdi" signified, or had any idea what it might mean for the Shi'a, the Sunnis, and the Infidel Americans, respectively -- as an idea, as a prompter of action.
Since the current Administration has come up with the brilliant strategy, demonstrated in Iraq the Model, Iraq the Light Unto the Muslim Nations, Shi'a-ruled Iraq the Light Unto the Sunni Muslim Nations, they might try, as they attempt to understand, to figure out just why the decision to bear any burden turned out to be a silly one, and even catastrophic since the burden they have chosen to bear is the Infidel Man's Burden, both in Iraq and around the world, and their policy? Their policy is to Make the World Safe For (Temporarily, Real-or-Feigned, Largely Meaningless) Moderate Islam.
What a policy.
"Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed..."
If this 12th Imam really does return, maybe that would also be time for the return of King Arthur. Who better to get medieval on their rear ends.
According to the journalist Nir Rosen, the Iraqi warrior al-Sadr and thousands of his followers believe that their jihad in Iraq is part of the literal ushering in of the Hidden Imam and the eschatological end-times this would herald.
The Muslim mental culture is much more disposed to literalism in general than the mental culture of any other religion. I think it has to do with the system of mind control & emotional flammability which is institutionalized in Islam: and mind control & emotional flammability finds more receptivity when the minds have been inculcated and enculturated with literalism.
"the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth."
No doubt Islamic eschatology (Shiite and Sunni) borrows heavily from the Inter-Testamental apocalyptic currents that informed Jewish and Christian eschatology.
In Christianity, the parousia (literally "appearance", but more broadly speaking the re-appearance or Second Coming of Christ) is preceded by certain signs of its approach. Inter-Testamental Judaism, on the basis of the Old Testament, had worked out the doctrine of "the woes of the Messiah," chebhele ha-mashiach, the calamities and afflictions attendant upon the close of the present and the beginning of the coming age being interpreted as birth pains of the latter.
This is transferred in the New Testament to the parousia of Christ.
Thus the "woes" in Jesus's eschatological discourse (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), which are supposed to precede the end-times:
1) wars, earthquakes and famines, "the beginning of travail";
2) the great tribulation;
3) commotions among the heavenly bodies (compare Revelation 6:2-17)
It is not only the marked culture of literalism which distinguishes Muslims from Jews & Christians, nor the beneficial effects of modern secularism upon the Jews & Christians (and its comparative deficiency among Muslims). For example, consider the Jehovah's Witnesses: they have a culture of literalism about eschatology, as well as a deficiency of secularism -- yet they have never been violent, while Muslims are ultra-violent. So, literalism and resistance to secularism alone do not explain the differences.
The difference goes to the heart of Islam: its holy texts in which the obligation of eschatological war is intimately bound up with the Truth of Islam and its need to dominate the world.
The victory of Dawa (Islam ruling the world) will precede the eschatological end-times which will finally put an end to the misery of history by consigning all non-Muslims to Hell and realizing eternal Paradise pleromatically.
And the process of Dawa becoming victorious cannot be divorced from the necessity to fight all those who will resist that Dawa: hence the necessary corollary of military Jihad.
While this dynamic of a symbiosis between political power, military expansion and eschatological inspiration has been present in Christian history, it has been mitigated by various factors:
1) an inherent tendency to interpret eschatological symbolisms in holy texts in figurative and mystical ways
2) injunctions present in the holy texts themselves to avoid dwelling upon the specificity and imminence of the Eschaton (the most powerful being when Jesus said even he himself did not know when the Eschaton would arrive, that only the Father knows)
3) the secularization of Christians over the last few centuries (increasing exponentially with each passing century, generation, and decade)
4) the comparative paucity in the Judaeo-Christian texts of strong associations between military action and eschatological ushering in of the Gospel, compared with the overwhelming preponderance seen in the Koran & Hadiths with respect to ushering in the dominance of Islam.
The only factors in Islam which have mitigated the dynamic of a symbiosis between political power, military expansion and eschatological inspiration have been:
1) internecine conflicts
2) Western geopolitical hegemony (beginning in the 16th century, and increasing exponentially every century since then).
Therefore:
If
1) Muslims can get their shit together and unify while strategically suppressing their internecine conflicts
and
2) if the Western geopolitical hegemony (which requires the underpinning of cultural strength), through its PC insanity will begin to unravel,
then
Islam might finally have a chance to realize the "three sparks" of world domination which Mohammed saw in a vision during the Battle of the Trench.
From above, "... the Iraqi warrior al-Sadr ...).
Since when does al-Sadr, a fat terrorist king-pin, deserve the title of "warrior" or "soldier"? He recruits terrorists to massacre innocents. I know some warriors Mr. Sadr, and you're no warrior.
Great post Dr Pepper. It is frightening to think about this guy with nuclear weapons, which he will have shortly.
More madness emanates from the mullah world:
Boy,if this Mahdi fella didn't wake up after WWI and WWII...
"the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth."
The Hojjatieh Society appears to be well qualified for the task of creating chaos on earth. Not sure about the "12th Imam's return" part, though.
I am reminded of all the times our dear friend IA786 referred to the imminent return of the mahdi, claiming the mahdi is already among us but his presence known only to a few of the devoted. Open questions to IA786 (who I know can't answer this):
If your answer is in the negative, you must then agree that there is a serious problem in umma-land.
This 12th Imam is some Dude, over 1200 years old, he has Methusaleh beat by 300 years.
The llth Imam died without a male heir, but Shi'a ideology demands that Imamhood be passed on the line of descent from the first Imam (Ali), the ideology was in crisis, without a male heir.. the Shi'a ideology would have come to a halt, so they invented a male heir called him Muhammad al Muntazar, but since he was no where to be seen, they explained his absence by claiming that he went into hiding (occulation) in the caves of Samarra, (that was circa 830 AD), and will emerge at the end times as the saviour (Mahdi) with of course Jesus at his side.
So apparently Shi'a Islam has their own version of Tim LaHaye, and their own End Times eschatology, wonder if they also have a rapture or a Muslim equivalent of Left Behind series.
[quote]sn't it interesting that Islam has its own little-known version of the Messianic era, of course to get there they must CREATE chaos.
Posted by: ZionLion at December 2, 2005 08:09 AM
The President of the Iranimal Kingdom is a certifiable nut job. His ramblings get more ridiculous every time he has center stage.
Posted by: DCWatson at December 2, 2005 08:17 AM [/quote]
Careful now, you are also talking about our own Trib types, the Millenialists, the Rapturists, the Tim LaHaye crowd, a tenet of the faith and it's fulfillment of Revelations requires the reconstruction of the Temple on the Mount.
And, apparently impatient for events to evolve on their own, they ferverently seek and work towards hastening and bringing on Armegeddon
Your kidding me aren't you. Most Evangelicals believe in the literalism of the scriptures, in fact that's one of the biggest issues in American Politics and the Christian Rights culture war against the seculars, it's behind the forced debate about "intelligent design" and the teaching of Creation theory in places like Kansas and throughout the midwest and south.
Jews don't take the Bible literally, but millions of Christians do, and that makes them very much like the Muslims who also take their scriptures literally.
The Mahdi and setting the stage for an imminent return. Wow! This could explain a couple of things. Iran's nuclear weapons program (which only a dunce would deny) and the conservative Christians talking up the imminent End of Days.
Islamofascist Iran would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons to begin an age of chaos to bring their Mahdi on the stage.
End of Days, whether pre, mid or post tribulation is a current expectation among conservative Christians. That Mahdi prophesied by the Shia Mohammedan would then be the anti-Christ.
Either way, without a united Western Alliance, expect dark days ahead.
Nariz your kind of way off base...Christians who believe in the end of times.. is nothing new,but you dont see them doing suicide bombings, cutting off heads... the nut job in Iran will have use of nuclear bombs soon, and will have no hesitation of using them, and that is the real difference!!!
'Jews don't take the Bible literally, but millions of Christians do, and that makes them very much like the Muslims who also take their scriptures literally.'~nariz
Probably because the Bible is not their Holy Book, nariz. As for the Fundamentalist Christians, we can see their efforts every day, also- in all the thousands of charities, self-help centers, soup kitchens and other sites, like these two listed below:
http://www.pachills.com/christ_centered.asp
http://christianservicesinc.com/soupkitchen.htm
I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that these organizations are all conspiring to Help People, rather than funnel their income to Fundie terrorists.
Yep, people who believe literally in scriptures like this are really, really scary.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Nariz:
Jews may not "take the bible literally" but that's not because there aren't any religious nuts amongst my co-religionists. It's because they prefer to keep things open-ended enough to argue interminiably about what something means metaphorically and/or behave in obsessive-compulsive manner about dietary restrictions/exclusions, or whether a certain letter in the alphabet should be pronounced as a hard "t" sound or soft "s" sound depending on whether a dot appears to one side.
Consequently, we end up with extreme fringe movements like the Naturei Karta who align themselves with the Palestinian Islamofascists in refusing to recognize Israel's statehood as only the Holy One has the right to create a Jewish state... ...and do so while living in Israel and collecting social benefits while they are up to their insane activities.
A short course in comparative religious fundamentalism:
Indeed, dark days are comming. There are two ways to deal with the comming darkness. The first is do nothing, until millions of innocents are killed when the mullahs get their nuclear jihad on, and then respond with massive nuclear retaliation, end result, hundreds of millions dead. Or we could perhaps bite the bullet now, and do something to terminate their nuclear project. Yes we will be vilified for it, but then there will be millions more people around to be angry with us.
"Jews don't take the Bible literally, but millions of Christians do, and that makes them very much like the Muslims who also take their scriptures literally."
Posted by Nariz above
If you ignore the teachings in the New Testament, the Quran, the Hadith, the Sira, 1400 years of Tafsir ( Islamic Jurist commentary) and the Islamic doctrine of abrogation, then your statement would be fairly accurate.
The only question is: why are you ignoring these things?
Nariz/Giaour:
Last call. I have asked you before, repeatedly, not to do this -- at least not here. You have ignored me.
Your repeated insistence that Christian and Muslim literalists are equivalent founders on the fact that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures contain no open-ended, universal call for believers to make war against unbelievers. Islamic Scripture does contain such a call (9:5, 9:29, etc.).
Your attempts to equate Christian fundamentalists with jihadists founder on the facts (at least until Jerry Falwell beheads someone) and interferes with our ability to identify the real enemy and take steps to defend ourselves accordingly.
You are diverting attention from the real issues that ought to be discussed here. Cut it out, or I will ban you -- again. And again. And again. And again.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Here's an interesting page on Islamic prophecies regarding WW3 and the Mahdi,
http://ww-iii.netfirms.com/islamicprophecy.htm
Mahdi = antiChrist
About Robert Spencer's comment.
In a friendly manner, I would not say there is not a single comment made by an Islamist that diverts attention from what we are trying to do here.
Let the Muslims make any argument they wish to, as long as it is not hate filled. In order to refute islam, we need to be able to, um, refute islam! This requires particular examples, which the islamists who post are happy to provide to us.
Otherwise we would have an endless series of "me too!" comments - not exactly thought provoking to make sure everyone agrees.
Truth does not grow with repetition. Even if 75% of the comments on this website were pro islam (and I think the percentage is probably about 5%), it only takes a few well thought out couter arguments from some of the brilliant commenters here on JW to unravel them.
So, I kind of enjoy Nariz (or others like him), for several reasons. I get to see some inane arguments, the particular biases of a devoted muslim, and the chance to see evidence of psychological pathology that may be associated with Islamic belief. We may also wear down the unhappy Islamist, with sheer reasoning. What could be better?
May I ask then sir, with all due respect, how this detracts from what we are trying to do here?
P.S. - if you are actually having to screen hate filled messages from muslims, then I completely agree with you. Those people "need axed" from the website.
It seems that those who have posted here all know what this bogus religon of Satan is all about. When we get Iraq behind us, we could then deal with Iran (Syria too!) Hell, bring on the mahdi, we all know who wins in the end!
So, I kind of enjoy Nariz (or others like him), for several reasons. I get to see some inane arguments, the particular biases of a devoted muslim, and the chance to see evidence of psychological pathology that may be associated with Islamic belief. We may also wear down the unhappy Islamist, with sheer reasoning. What could be better?
Posted by VoiceofSkippy
The only problem is that Nariz/Giaour is not a muslim, he is an atheist and a Marxist. His inexorable attempts to equate Christianity with Islam mystify me, but he vilifies Christianity and Islam with equal vigor.
Nariz detests religion---any religion. But he is particularly abhorrent of Christianity and Islam which he believes are "cut from the same cloth." He thinks that Christian fundamentalists are trying to take over America, influence the government, brainwash your children, and forcibly impose Christianity on every American. Religious fanatics being what they are, this seige by Christian fundamentalists could get nasty and kill millions.
His misrepresentations of Christianity and Christians could easily mislead and confuse people who come here to learn about Islam and jihad. They might leave with the erroneous belief that Christians are as dangerous as muslims and that Christianity teaches the same violence and hate as Islam. That would be a shame, don't you think?
Lol, maybe we need to start NarizWatch.org
Gary,
Thanks for you links at the top of the page. I'm getting educated! The one on the attack of Islam on free speech is awesome.
The 12th Imam is not dead. He lives in occlusion somewhere.
He definitely sounds like some kind of Count Dracula in a coffin or in a cave.
It's a creepy thought.
It's even creepier that people in Iran think of such perversion as spiritually good and uplifting.
Nariz
My statement wasn't meant to deny the existence of literal-minded Christians; it was meant to highlight the far greater number & significance of literal-minded Muslims as compared with those of Christians.
Christians (particularly Western Christians) are firmly and mostly warmly ensconced in a sea of modern secularism, with the majority of them being not strict literalists, but a sizeable minority being strict literalists but expressing this with violence only in tiny, minuscule, indeed microscopic ways compared with the way Muslim literalists are violent around the globe.
In the Muslim world, it's mostly the other way around: the non-literalists are a small minority insecurely ensconced in a sea of literalism and baseline fundamentalism.
Hence, this comparatively far greater number & significance is due to (or reflects) a distinguishing "marked culture of literalism" vis-a-vis that of Christians.
I just realized that our Nariz may no longer be here, due to Spencer's warning.
Hmmmm..
Last time a "Mahdi" appeared it was in Sudan a little over a century ago. Let this be a warning to Muslim apocalists.
(If you need a reference, Google "Mahdi," "Kitchener," and "Omduran." Otherwise, suffice it to say that after Omduran Lord Kitchener kept the Mahdi's skull on his desk.)