When caught out, play the victim — it’s a tried and tested tactic of Islamic supremacists the world over.
Iran’s UN ambassador also accused Bennett of lying. Yet who is more likely to be lying? While Sunni Muslims have doctrines regarding deceiving unbelievers as well, but it was the Shia who made lying a science. Taqiyya as a specific concept by that name was developed during the time of the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, in middle of the eighth century, when the Shi’ites were being persecuted by the Sunni caliph al-Mansur. Taqiyya allowed Shi’ites to pretend to be Sunnis in order to protect themselves from Sunnis who were killing Shi’ites. Until the conversion of Persia to Shi’ism, taqiyya was an important element of Shi’ite survival, for Sunnis, in the majority almost everywhere, would not infrequently take it upon themselves to cleanse the land of those whom they referred to as Rafidites, that is, rejecters — those who rejected the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman.
Some Shi’ite thinkers turned the secrecy that had become a necessity into a virtue. The medieval Shi’ite scholar Ali ibn Musa ibn Tawus, who died in 1266, taught that Allah had revealed Shi’ism secretly, and it was incumbent upon the believers to practice it in secret. At the end of days, Allah will admit them secretly into Paradise. Some secrets were never to be revealed under any circumstances. The fifth imam, Muhammad al-Baqir, who died in 732, once gave a book to one of his disciples, telling him, “If you ever transmit any of it, my curse and the curse of my forefathers will fall upon you.”
The sixth Imam, Jafar Al-Sadiq, who died in 765, had a servant who was suspected of having revealed some of the secrets of the faith. The Imam lectured, “Whoever propagates our tradition is like someone who denies it.…Conceal our doctrine and do not divulge it. God elevates in this world one who conceals our doctrine and does not divulge it and he turns it in the next world into a light between his eyes which will lead him to Paradise. God abases in this world one who divulges our tradition and our doctrine and does not conceal it, and in the next world he removes the light from between his eyes and turns it into darkness which will lead him to hell. Taqiyya is our religion and the religion of our fathers; he who has no taqiyya has no religion.”
Other Imams also emphasized the cardinal importance of taqiyya, apparently not only because Shi’ites were under constant threat from Sunnis, but because Shi’ite Islam contained doctrines that must stay hidden from outsiders. Some sayings of the Imams include, “He who has no taqiyya has no faith”; “he who forsakes taqiyya is like him who forsakes prayer”; “he who does not adhere to taqiyya and does not protect us from the ignoble common people is not part of us”; “nine tenths of faith falls within taqiyya”; “taqiyya is the believer’s shield (junna), but for taqiyya, God would not have been worshipped.”
Taqiyya is ultimately practiced in order to protect Islam and the Muslim community. In this case, Iran’s ambassador is likely employing it to try to prevent closer scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear program.
“Israeli PM Says Iran has Crossed Nuclear ‘Red Lines’; Tehran Calls it ‘Full of Lies,’” Algemeiner, September 28, 2021 (thanks to Henry):
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that Iran had crossed “all red lines” in its nuclear program and vowed that Israel would not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Bennett said Iran sought to dominate the Middle East under a “nuclear umbrella” and urged a more concerted international effort to halt Iran’s nuclear activities….
“Iran’s nuclear program has hit a watershed moment, and so has our tolerance. Words do not stop centrifuges from spinning,” Bennett said. “Israel will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
The UN ambassador for Iran, which has denied seeking a nuclear bomb, rejected Bennett’s speech as “full of lies.”
Bennett, a politician who opposes Palestinian statehood, also drew an angry Palestinian reaction after he failed to mention the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict….
“Iran’s nuclear weapons program is at a critical point. All red lines have been crossed,” Bennett said.
He called for international action. “If we put our heads to it, if we’re serious about stopping it, if we use our resourcefulness, we can prevail,” Bennett said.
Biden told Bennett in White House talks in August that he was putting “diplomacy first” with Iran but if negotiations fail he would be prepared to turn to other unspecified options. The UN atomic watchdog said in an August report that Iran had accelerated enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade.
Bennett also took aim at Raisi, referring to him as the “butcher of Tehran” and accusing him of human rights abuses over the years. Raisi, a Shi’ite cleric, is under US sanctions over allegations of rights violations when he was a judge.
“Iran-phobia runs rampant at UN,” Iran’s UN Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi posted on Twitter. Israel “is in no position to discuss our peaceful program when it has hundreds of nuclear warheads,” he said, referring to Israel’s widely believed status as the Middle East’s sole nuclear-armed state….
Mike says
Iran how about you have Israelaphobia
Iran keep playing with fire you will get burned
mortimer says
It is much more likely that the main ‘Iran-o-phobia’ is coming from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have to deal with those deranged ayatollahs and their navy every day of the year in the Gulf.
The ayatollahs are creating misery at home and abroad. The best thing the Arabs could do is to join together and take out the ayatollahs and restore the Persian monarchy of HRH Prince Reza Pahlavi.
That would bring the same stability to the region that exists between the other Gulf states.
Kashyap says
With this development in Iran, a nuke in the hands of the Islamic states announces/ suggests WW 3 is on the horizon.
47G2 Pilot says
Kashyap, I am afraid it is not whether WW3 is on the horizon but when it will occur and how far will it spread. There are to many ideologically deluded people controlling nuclear weapons to have any faith they will be responsible and not use them.
James Lincoln says
47G2 Pilot,
I assume your JW name refers to the Bell 47G2 helicopter.
Great aircraft!
mortimer says
“Iran-o-phobia” ??? No! It is “AYATOLLAH-PHOBIA”.
Down with the corrupt ayatollahs!
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Robert, thanks for your introductory information about secrecy within Islam. Two questions…
[1] Various organizations (Masons, Mormons, etc.) have teachings that must not be disclosed to outsiders. But human beings being what they are, sooner or later an insider will turn renegade and make these doctrines public (to the disappointment of outsiders — “Is that all there is?”); see, for example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Masonic_Party
What are these secret Shia doctrines, and where can a list of them be found?
[2] Your explanation refers to “the end of days”. So there is an Islamic doctrine that eventually the rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun will slow down so much that one side of the Earth will perpetually face the Sun, and day and night will no longer exist. Where in the Quran is this doctrine stated?
Proud Islamophobe says
The ‘victims’ are crying again.