Ahmadinejad sanctioned by clerics for Mahdi revelations…again
Ahmadinejad has gotten in trouble with clerics before in relation to his “experience’ with the Mahdi. He earned their censure and ridicule from his opponents when he claimed to feel the supposed ‘glow’ and haloed presence of the Mahdi at his UN speech. Ahmadinejad is widely rumored to be a member of a sect that has rather extreme beliefs about the Mahdi and the Hidden Imam. He supposedly believes his actions may have some influence over when the Mahdi will return to the physical world. It is a difficult concept to understand for many Westerners and the importance of these beliefs in the Shia world. The reappearance of the Mahdi is a harbinger of Islamic supremacy:
The eleventh Imam, al-Hassan al-Askari, died in 874. He was succeeded by the twelfth Imam, the youthful Muhammad, who “disappeared” in 274/878 in the cave of the great mosque at Samarra without leaving progeny.
He is now known as the “expected one,” (al-Muntazar), the “promised one” (al-Mahdi”), or the “hidden one,” (al-Mustatir). The theology of the Hidden Imam is that Allah realized at last that the rightful successor to Muhammad was not going to be accepted by Islam at large so he had to be taken into hiding and kept there until he would re-appear to purify the umma and take the world for Islam.
The period of the Twelfth Imam’s hiding was in two parts. The period from 878 until 941 would be known as the “Lesser Occultation,” a time when the Hidden Imam was still active in this earthly realm, communicating by messengers. The Great Occultation began in 941, when all contact with the world was broken off. This date has been misinterpreted by some authors as the date of his disappearance. The Great Occultation continues to present and will end when he re-appears.
Ahmadinejad Awaits the Hidden Imam (Interesting perpective!)
The story has close correlations to the Apocalypse and the ‘End Times’ prophecies popular among many Christian fundamentalists. In Iran, believers think that the Hidden Imam will return at a time of existential danger for man to lead believers in a new, unified caliphate. In many variants of the story al-Mahdi is accompanied by Jesus on his return.
Some cynical Iranian commentators believe Ahmadinejad is merely using the Hidden Imam as a means to appeal to his base who are in large part drawn from the uneducated rural classes. Regardless of whether Ahmadinejad peddles the philosophy for political or religious intent or some combination of both, he has been criticized heavily in the past by more traditional Iranian clerics for this approach.
Ahmadinejad went further than ever before in emphasising his belief that the Mahdi is playing a critical role in Iran’s day-to-day politics.
“The Imam Mahdi is in charge of the world and we see his hand directing all the affairs of the country,” he said in the speech, which appears to date from last month but has only now been broadcast.
“We must solve Iran’s internal problems as quickly as possible. Time is lacking. A movement has started for us to occupy ourselves with our global responsibilities, which are arriving with great speed.”
Two leading clerics retorted that Ahmadinejadwould be better off concentrating on Iran’s social problems — most notably its double-digit inflation — than indulging in such mystical rhetoric.
“If Ahmadinejad wants to say that the hidden imam is supporting the decisions of the government, it is not true,” sniped Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam, the spokesman of the conservative Association of Combatant Clerics.
“For sure, the hidden imam does not approve of inflation of 20 percent, the high cost of living and numerous other errors,” he said, according to the Kargozaran daily.
Ali Asghari, a member of the conservative Hezbollah faction in parliament, told the president not to link the management of the country to the imam.
“Ahmadinejad would do better to worry about social problemslike inflation … and other terrestrial affairs,” the Etemad Melli daily quoted him as saying.
It appears that Ahmadinejad is in hot water again on the issue. He has once again earned censure and criticisms for his recent inferences that he converses regularly with the Mahdi.
Askar-Oladi, who is also head of Imam Khomeini’s Committee, accused Ahmadinejad’s advisor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, of helping to spread the rumors.
“In what capacity does he talk about religious matters? Why does he issue controversial statements and leave you to provide explanations for the public?” Askar-Oladi reportedly told Ahmadinejad during their meeting.
The Mahdi, an Arabic term for guided, is believed to be the redeemer of Islam who will come to earth before the Day of Judgment and, together with Jesus, will rid the world of all tyrants and injustice.
According to observers, the criticism Askar-Oladi directed at Mashaei and several of the president’s close aides are in fact directed at the president himself for he is seen as the main source for the latest claims about the coming of the Mahdi.
In a recent speech Ahmadinejad claimed he had documented evidence that the United States invaded Iraq in order to prevent the coming of the awaited Mahdi and stressed that the Iranian people will prepare the grounds for his coming and will form the Mahdi Army.
The current Ahmadinejad regime allegedly has very distinct political objectives in support of its religious agenda. The Iranian paranoia about regime change has as much to do with religious agenda as it has to do with nationalist beliefs. This is difficult for the Western mind to come with terns with and forms a part of the current diplomatic impasse between the two.
In case you think that such analysis of the Iranian agenda is confined to extreme interpretations, the report produced by the respected think-tank, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, entitled “Apocalyptic Politics: On the rationality of Iranian policy” may dispel that thought:
Ahmadinezhad is from a completely different genre of worshiper-politicians. He apparently belongs to a secret society that believes in the imminent return of the Hidden Imam. This group does not give much credit to the clerics or the clerical establishment, since few of its members have the theological training and ability to read and understand the religious texts in Arabic. The group considers itself to be the authentic representative of Islamic teachings, with the prophetic mission to change Iranian society—all in preparation for the coming of the Mahdi. In this group’s apocalyptic ideology, advanced technology can be used to hasten the return of the Hidden Imam. It is very difficult to know precisely what this secret society believes, but some rumors suggest it is eager to control the country’s nuclear program. It has been said that Gholam Reza Aqazadeh, head of the Organization for the Atomic Energy of Iran, is affiliated with this society. Some people around Ahmadinezhad have a background in neo-Nazi groups in Germany, such as Muhammad Ali Ramin, who is the head of the Holocaust Foundation, the secretary of the Holocaust conference in Tehran, and the president’s advisor.
It seems that the ideology of Ahmadinezhad’s group is a mixture of socialism and Nazism in the framework of Islamic fundamentalism. This ideology has two main international slogans: anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism. Apocalypticism has little influence in the seminaries of Qom and Najaf, and it has been always a marginal trend within the clerical establishment. The return of the Hidden Imam means the end of clerical establishment, because the clerics consider themselves as the representatives of the Imam in his absence. Hence, they do not propagate the idea that the Hidden Imam will come soon. But in the military forces, especially in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia, apocalypticism has a very strong following.
