The ushering in of the 12th Imam (Does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want the Apocolypse?)

[Man-Thing]

The return of the Mahdi

Posted: May 5, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at the United Nations in October 2005. At the conclusion of his discourse, he called upon Allah to quickly usher in the re-emergence of the "Twelfth" or "Hidden Imam," sometimes referred to as the "Mahdi."

The fanatical leader later claimed that while he spoke to that August body, he was surrounded by a halo of light. Mr. Ahmadinejad regaled a local ayatollah with the story of how "The leaders of the world" stared at him during the time he spoke. He further claimed that they were unable to blink or turn away, as though some unseen force held them in a trance-like state. "When I say they didn't bat an eyelid, I'm not exaggerating, because I was looking at them," intoned Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad is a Shia Muslim. Many of them believe that the Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi, the last in a line of saints descended from Ali, the founder of their sect, vanished down a well near Jamkaran, Iran, in A.D. 941. According to their beliefs, he went into a state of "occultation," like the sun being hidden behind the clouds; and, after a stormy period of apocalyptic wars, the clouds will part, and the "sun" (the Mahdi) will be revealed. They believe that when he is released from his imprisonment, the entire world will submit to Islam.

The world may smirk as they hear the president of Iran talking of the return of the Mahdi and think it is just a bunch of religious foolishness. But, he is dead serious. Not only does he believe it, but the tens of thousands of mullahs controlling ancient Persia believe it also. It is their mission from God.

But just who is this "Mahdi," this Hidden Imam? Some thought it was the Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, when he returned to Iran in February 1979 following the overthrow of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the roads leading into Tehran were lined with nearly 2 million Shia Muslims screaming "al-Muntazar." The grand ayatollah was quick to deny that he was "al-Muntazar," one of the names given to the Hidden Imam. In other words, many thought Khomeini was the awakened Mahdi. Khomeini did, however, explain to his followers that he was the forerunner, the one who had come to open the way for the Hidden Imam to make his reappearance.

The Hidden Imam, upon his unveiling, will, according Iran's constitution, assume leadership in the Islamic republic. All will acquiesce to his authority in what is essentially an end-time paradigm based on what some call the Muslim messiah. Ahmadinejad's belief in this Hidden Imam is so compelling that he may well be persuaded to go to any lengths, including a nuclear attack on Israel and/or the United States, to precipitate an apocalyptic event, a means to an end.

Initially, Ahmadinejad's threats seemed but the idle ranting of a megalomaniac. But now, armed with the capability to produce nuclear weapons, Iran will be a menace with which to be reckoned. The spirit of the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini lives on in Iran. This is the same Khomeini who said in 1981, "I say let Iran go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

The ummah or Muslims worldwide are comprised of Sunni and Shia Muslims. The two different sects evolved following the death of Muhammad. The Sunnis readily accepted his successor, while the Shia Muslims demanded their leader be a direct descendant of Muhammad. This personage is known to the Shia as "Ali." Hence the designation, "The Party of Ali."

Through the ages, additional subdivisions in the Shia sect have pitted one group against another, all led by recognized descendants of Muhammad. Their individual designations are derived from the number of the imam which they follow. Thus, Iran is comprised mainly of followers of the "Twelfth," or the Hidden Imam. He succeeded Al-Hassan al-Askari who died in A.D. 874.

Shiite Muslims believe that the Twelfth Imam disappeared down a well near Jamkaran in A.D. 941, and will emerge from this location at his Second Coming. But first[/SIZE], they believe, the world will go through great calamities and upheavals. This "apocalypse" will set the conditions for the Mahdi's return.

The Hidden Imam is known by several monikers, which translate to "expected one," the "hidden one" and, of course, Mahdi (promised one). His mystique is enhanced by the legend that the young successor in the lineage of Muhammad was secreted because he was unaccepted by the majority of Muslims. He will apparently be kept in seclusion until the day he emerges to reunite Muslims, conquer the world and establish an Islamic caliphate.

Ahmadinejad has taken up the banner of the Hidden Imam. His hate-filled rhetoric aimed at the Jews and America is stirring fanatical Muslims the world over. On April 20, a group calling itself the Islamic Thinkers Society rallied near the Israeli Embassy in Queens, N.Y. Carrying placards and banners picturing an Islamic flag flying over the White House, they shouted such vile pronouncements as:

Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!

We will not accept the United Nations, they are the criminals themselves
They get paid by the Israeli and the U.S. government to do their job.
We don't recognize United Nations as a body; We only recognize Allah.
Israel won't last long ... Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel

Islam will dominate the world
Islam is the only solution.
Another mushroom cloud, right in the midst of Israel! ​

As days pass, Ahmadinejad becomes more defiant. It is as if he is daring the nations of the world to try to stop him. How far will he go? Will he, indeed, launch a murderous attack against Israel or the United States in a misguided attempt to see his dream of the return of the Hidden Imam come to fruition? It becomes more obvious that he is willing to stop at nothing to reach his goal.

source

 

[Man-Thing]

'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 14/01/2006)

As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?"

Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.

But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.

In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.

When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."

The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.

One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad's government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.

All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a "contract" pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.

Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.

He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.

Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.

The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?

The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June's presidential elections.

The main rift is no longer between "reformists" and "hardliners", but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.

Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad's international debut, his speech to the United Nations.

World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.

Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".

The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".

In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.

"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.

"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."

Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".

Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.

source

 

[Man-Thing]

Some people say that this guy (even though he denys the holocaust, while at the same time says Israel should be living in Germany- the place of the Holocaust) isn't a Islamofacist leader hellbent on the destruction of Israel, but wrather we should just look at the differences between Iran and the West as a cultural divide.

I think the idea that he is a type of "John the Baptist", for ushering this 12th Imam, is the final piece of the puzzle. When completed, it depicts a leader much like Hitler. Both men claimed to be led by supernatural forces, and both men share desires of destruction of the Jews.

It should be noted to that in Iran's constitution it says (paraphrased) "The goal of the country is to usher in the 12th Imam".

When we look at the total picture first being Iran's uranium enrichment program, second being his anti-semetic remarks, and lastly his belief in his own part of the ushering the FINAL Imam, it should be clear that this isn't the result of a cultural divide.

Go ahead, put your trust in this madman, and his nuclear program.

 

[Alpha and Omega]

You're both myrmidons.

 

[Man-Thing]

You're both myrmidons.

how so?

 

[Man-Thing]

How so dillwhole? You make a stupid statement and then leave? Do you even know what it means?

 

[Alpha and Omega]

Why did you make one response, then change it before the edit notice, only to put something else? . . . and you're calling me names this quickly?

I must've hit a zealot nerve.

 

[Man-Thing]

Why did you make one response, then change it before the edit notice, only to put something else? . . . and you're calling me names this quickly?

I must've hit a zealot nerve.

I didn't know the context of your claim wether it be religious or political.

1. You don't know me.

2. I don't follow anything blindly, including the Bible. I was once an agnostic, but now I've become a Christian because of studying-not of what someone told me. I know for a fact I know more about the Bible than most preachers, because I do what it says, and test it. I try and be a modern Berean.

3. I believe people should be free to believe what they want. I don't force my views on anyone. I merely express my views through my constitutional right of freedom of speech.

4. I'm not a Republican.

Guess you're wrong. Try again.

Oh, and I'm not mad- so no nerve hit.

 

[Alpha and Omega]

Well, that's good to know. I only mentioned that because I often find that most of the people who are in opposition have many striking similarities in how they approach what they believe. At some point, the choices we make are controlled by variable things around us, hence the stated j/k.

I was just surprised that you took offense, toned down what you originally said, and then found the nerve to present a watered-down version of the original.

No harm was meant, but these religious threads are making me dizzy. . . sort of.

I don't follow anything blindly, including the Bible. I was once an agnostic, but now I've become a Christian because of studying-not of what someone told me.

Well that's good to know. I hope you're happy with it. I guess the trash/treasure adage is appropriate, but good luck. I actually respect you a little more for not immediately condemning me to hell for going against the grain McCarthy.

 

[Erundur]

looks like someones gettin' paranoid

there, there...

 

[Man-Thing]

WTH?

Stop deviating from the subject.

 

[Fenrir]

Ahmedinejad is a bloody politician, just like Khomeini is ("forerunner that has come to pave the way for the 12th Imam?" Give me ****ing break... ) who is good for nothing but macho talk and using their religious propaganda to appease hardline conservatives in his own country. The Shiites are gullible idiots who fall for any poser that advents the coming of the 12th Imam or anyone who claims to be Muhammad's descendant. It's why the Ayatollahs have been reeling them in like fresh fish for centuries.

Oh and just so you know, the Shiites have been waiting for the mystical 12th Imam since at least the 1970s, and back then some jackass even duped them into believing he actually was one. up:

 

[Man-Thing]

The problem though, is that he seems to believe he can have an effect on the coming of the 12th Imam through chaos.

 

[Man-Thing]

Oh, Hitler was a politician too. The fact that he's a politician doesn't mean he's constantly giving lip service.

 

[Erundur]

The problem though, is that he seems to believe he can have an effect on the coming of the 12th Imam through chaos.

Like I said before, your paranoid.

 

[Man-Thing]

Like I said before, your paranoid.

How am I being paranoid?

 

[Fenrir]

Oh, Hitler was a politician too. The fact that he's a politician doesn't mean he's constantly giving lip service.

Hitler was a politician who actually had the audicity to do what he claimed. Name at least one of Ahmedinejad's promises on which he's delivered.

 

[Man-Thing]

Hitler was a politician who actually had the audicity to do what he claimed. Name at least one of Ahmedinejad's promises on which he's delivered.

So because he hasn't done anything YET means he WON'T?

 

[Fenrir]

The problem though, is that he seems to believe he can have an effect on the coming of the 12th Imam through chaos.

How do you know that's what he really believes? How do you know it's not just opportunistic crap he's spewing out of his mouth just so he can please the mullahs on home ground?

 

[Erundur]

he called upon Allah to quickly usher in the re-emergence of the "Twelfth" or "Hidden Imam," sometimes referred to as the "Mahdi."

he was surrounded by a halo of light.

they were unable to blink or turn away, as though some unseen force held them in a trance-like state.

They believe that when he is released from his imprisonment, the entire world will submit to Islam.

Khomeini did, however, explain to his followers that he was the forerunner, the one who had come to open the way for the Hidden Imam to make his reappearance.

Ahmadinejad's belief in this Hidden Imam is so compelling that he may well be persuaded to go to any lengths, including a nuclear attack on Israel and/or the United States, to precipitate an apocalyptic event, a means to an end.

This is the same Khomeini who said in 1981, "I say let Iran go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

But first, they believe, the world will go through great calamities and upheavals. This "apocalypse" will set the conditions for the Mahdi's return.

in a misguided attempt to see his dream of the return of the Hidden Imam come to fruition?

a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.

nd the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.

One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad's government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.

His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed.

ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.

might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?

"hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".

"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.

"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."

You went ahead and bold every single sentence that you found threatning or amusing. The only other poster I know that does this is Celldog.

Calm down and relax, and get away from Glenn Beck and Fox News.

 

[Fenrir]

So because he hasn't done anything YET means he WON'T?

So because he hasn't done anything YET means he most definitely WILL?

 

[Man-Thing]

How do you know that's what he really believes? How do you know it's not just opportunistic crap he's spewing out of his mouth just so he can please the mullahs on home ground?

I don't know 100% hence the "?" in the thread title.

Still though, based upon the evidence I gave, in particular his speech at the UN in August of 05, this man should be taken seriously, and not brushed aside with something like "he's just appealing to his mullahs".

1. His speech

2. His MANY speeches regarding anti-semitism

3. His country's uranium enrichment program

4. His belief in the 12th Imam and his possible belief that he can help usher him through atomic war.
VS.

1. He hasn't done anything yet.

Basically, the evidence you have is that he hasn't done anything yet.

 

[Man-Thing]

You went ahead and bold every single sentence that you found threatning or amusing. The only other poster I know that does this is Celldog.

Calm down and relax, and get away from Glenn Beck and Fox News.

So because I bolded text that I felt was important to the story for those who just want to "brush through it" means I'm paranoid???

That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Fenrir]

I don't know 100% hence the "?" in the thread title.

Still though, based upon the evidence I gave, in particular his speech at the UN in August of 05, this man should be taken seriously, and not brushed aside with something like "he's just appealing to his mullahs".

1. His speech

The ramblings of a politician. You fall for it, you're a big-time sucker.

2. His MANY speeches regarding anti-semitism

Like that's a new thing among Shiites.

3. His country's uranium enrichment program

He has repeatedly said his country's uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes only. And even if he does by any chance develop a nuclear weapon, the shaky twitchy fingered Israelis are going to nuke him and his country before Ahmedinejad can say "pinky".

1. He hasn't done anything yet.

Basically, the evidence you have is that he hasn't done anything yet.

And it's all that is required. Many Iranian ayatollahs, now and before, have talked of doing even worse yet Ahmedinejad is the one getting all the attention right now. It's just the kind of selective reasoning the current American administration will use to justify an attack on Iran.

 

[Man-Thing]

The ramblings of a politician. You fall for it, you're a big-time sucker.

I like your selective choose what words to believe from the politician, here you think it's just him appealing to his "base" and consider it rubbish, whereas two quotes down you take stock in what he says about his uranium enrichment program.

Like that's a new thing among Shiites.

Yeah, I mean radical Shiites aren't really a threat...
x10,000

He has repeatedly said his country's uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes only. And even if he does by any chance develop a nuclear weapon, the shaky twitchy fingered Israelis are going to nuke him and his country before Ahmedinejad can say "pinky".

His predecessor Kohmami (s/p?) also said (paraphrased) "It doesn't matter if Iran is destroyed, just as long as Islam is victorious".

Once again though, I have to point out your selective believing what this man says.
If he says something like "Death to the Jews", then you believe he's just doing it to appeal to the mullahs, whereas if he says "our uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes only" you believe it.

And it's all that is required. Many Iranian ayatollahs, now and before, have talked of doing even worse yet Ahmedinejad is the one getting all the attention right now. It's just the kind of selective reasoning the current American administration will use to justify an attack on Iran.

I'm not saying we should bomb Iran, but I'm defenantly not saying we should take this man lightly.