Posted on 06/10/2007 10:10:43 PM PDT by freedom44
TEHRAN • A top aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has set up a special body to oversee the spread of the distinctive and often controversial philosophy of the Iranian president, media reported yesterday.
Ahmadinejad's chief of staff Abdol Reza Sheikh-ol Eslami has appointed members of a "council to define and guard over the thought and works of the president," according to Ham Mihan newspaper and the ISNA news agency.
Since coming to power in 2005 on a platform of restoring revolutionary values, Ahmadinejad has carved out a reputation as a deeply ideological president whose comments have been criticised abroad and sometimes inside Iran.
The 15-member council will include some of the hardline president's closest aides, including government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham, Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi and his close advisor Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi.
His ideology, most clearly laid out in speeches at frequent public rallies in Iran's provinces, is a distinctive mixture of religious rhetoric, assertions of Iran's power and sharp attacks against Israel and the Western powers.
Most notoriously, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly predicted that Israel will disappear, calling for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" and last week saying a "countdown" had begun towards its destruction.
He has also dismissed the Holocaust as a "myth" and played down the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II, provoking an international outcry.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the West as the "bullying powers" whose time of superiority is ending as Islamic nations such as Iran step up their progress.
He has also been unrelenting in his defiance over Iran's nuclear programme, which he has said is reaching the summit and compared to a train without brakes-a comment that caused ruffles inside Iran.
Ahmadinejad has spoken of his desire of creating a "Mahdaviat" society in Iran of love and justice that will pave the way for the return of the 12th imam.
"Iran is stronger than ever. The secret is to believe in God. Those who are for God are victorious," he told reporters at a news conference last week.
"Iran is stronger than ever. The secret is to believe in God. Those who are for God are victorious," he told reporters at a news conference last week.A powerful witness for the truth of his profession, to be sure. Why, were it possible, even the very elect would be deceived by this formidable seducer of the hearts of men. /mocking sarcasm off
“assertions of Iran’s power and sharp attacks against Israel and the Western powers.”
Just hire those working for the NYT.
No, "we" are not cowards. We never have been. It's the 'leaders' of our country who are the cowards! Bush keeps making all these threats and then he never follows through on them.....
In fact, with Iran, after saying we will never meet with them, we turned around and invite them to discuss Iraq with us.....
I'm NOT a happy camper over that idiotic move! It makes that nut seem like he backed us down and are afraid of him so we gave in to him.
Isn't it chaos that brings forth the 12th iman... If not, or if so, or whatever -- what's a "mahdaviat" society?
We have been weighed and found wanting. Hell will be paid in full.
I know it’s wiki dic but here ya go:
Mahdaviat
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Mahdaviat is a religious term in Iranian Shi’a Islam meaning
“belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi”. Believing followers of any Mahdi claimant
can be referred to as Mahdawis (or Mahdavis); their belief, faith or
school of thought is thus
Mahdaviat (or Mahdawia(t) and similar transliterations,
depending on Arabic, Persian or Urdu pronunciation).
In Islamic eschatology, the Second
Coming of Isa (Jesus) is preceded by the appearance of a figure known as the Mahdi or
“rightly-guided one”. Shi’ah Muslims believe this person is the same as the 12th Imam (also Imam
Zaman), who was hidden by God following the death of his father in 874, and will reappear as “the
restorer of religion and justice who will rule before the end of the world”.
There is so much misreporting on this, even by people like Robert Spencer, Bernard Lewis, etc.
The Mahdi is the 12th Imam only for the Shi'ites; for the Sunnis, Sufis, etc. the Mahdi will be some Muslim almost as great and pure as Mohammed himself.
He comes with this twofold purpose: to kill the Dajjal, and by that act to establish a world-wide Islamic state governed by shari'a law.
It is not amorphous "chaos" that causes the Mahdi to appear -- it is the presence on earth of the Dajjal ("the Deceiver") -- the greatest evil to beset the planet since the serpent in Eden.
Here's the key: For the past several decades, many Muslim preachers have identified Western culture, the Western nations, and the Western people -- collectively -- as "the Dajjal." Ergo, if we exist on Earth, the Mahdi will soon appear to kill us all and to wipe the planet clean of us.
The Hadith foretell that the Dajjal will take over / have influence on nearly the whole planet (all except for Mecca and Medina) in the Last Days. Muslims are interpretting that as the pervasive influence of Western multinational corporations, Western governments, Western culture, Western technology, etc.
The Hadith further prophesy that the Mahdi and his small vanguard of "true" Muslims will overthrow the Dajjal and kill all of his followers. That explains the unquestioning conviction the Muslims have that they will triumph.
Neither the Qur'an nor the Hadith gives a date, but there is a widespread belief that Judgment Day will arrive in the Muslim year 1500 AH, or 2076 AD.
Ahmadinejad believes that he can best "pave the way" for the return of the Mahdi by creating a "Mahdaviat" society -- that is, by creating a society based on strict interpretation of shari'a law and the rejection of all "Dajjalic" Western influences. Thus, when the Mahdi arrives, he will be able to just slip into the driver's seat to lead the jihad against the Dajjal.
See my FR homepage for more information.
Who is writing this stuff?
Mahmoud's publicity agent?
Were it not for his almost-to-be nuclear weapons no one would know this sad clown’s name.”
Except for the hostages who were held for 444 days.
I am totally convinced that he was one of the ringleaders of that fiasco.
Thanks again, Jimmah Carter!!!!!
Next to my first husband, I think I hate Jimmah Carter the most.
RE: #12 above
Thanks for that insightful exposition.
There is only one Creed I know.
The Apostles Creed.
No copy cats.
The Mahdi must be named Mohammed and be a direct descendant. Doesn't that leave out Osama -- or does he have an unused middle name? Dajjal, tell me your fascination with the Mahdi - do you have new insights?
As a matter of fact, OBL (like most Arabs -- or Spaniards, for that matter) has a whole bunch of middle names, and Muhammed just happens to be one of them. There was a news report that post 9/11, "in his edicts and official correspondence, he no longer signs his name as Osama bin Laden but as Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden."
See Is Osama the Mahdi?
If you've read my FR homepage you know that many Muslims are now interpretting the ahadith allegorically. If "the Dajjal" can be an allegory for the West, then "the Mahdi" can be an allegory for the jihadists collectively. It also provides an easy way to deal with that "direct descendant" prophecy.
Dajjal, tell me your fascination with the Mahdi - do you have new insights
About two weeks after 9/11 I read a short article about the Signs of Qiyama and the Mahdi, and it shook me up. Since the 1980s I had made a hobby of collecting Illuminati / New World Order / Conspiracy "exposes" plus Second Coming literature, and I saw immediately the power that the End-Time hadith could have on a Muslim's mind.
I think that millennialism is at the heart of the jihad. It frustrates me to no end that for a few years it was ignored completely, and now for the last year the topic has been treated as though Ahmadinejad is the only Muslim in the whole world who believes these are the Last Days.
So I bang my drum at FreeRepublic, but so far I don't think many people have noticed.
At no point do they consider the possibility their culture's backward 14th century ideas are the cause of their problems. Sometimes they'll go as far as to believe it might have something to do with corrupt leaders "stealing" their share of the oil - but that's about as far as introspection gets.
In debate, Japan can be mentioned - a county with NO natural resources. No oil, no iron, no aluminum, no gold, no nothing. Yet, Japan's an economic powerhouse. Then ask, "why?".
But I'm getting off subject... I'm with you on the Mahdi thing - it's going to get bigger as the frustration level rises and it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Mahdi did not exist, they would create him.
That would additionally explain away Japan -- they have allied themselves with the Dajjalic way of doing things economically and politically -- and besides, they were evil non-Islamic Buddhist & Shintoist infidels
How's this for a prophesy -- it's not from the Hadith; it's the Sixth Imam summarizing many of the ahadith:
When you see that truth has died and people of truth have disappeared,
and you see that injustice prevails through the land;
and Scripture has become despised and things are introduced into it that are not in it and it is turned towards men's desires;
and you see the people of error having mastery over the people of truth;
and you see evil out in the open and the doers of evil are not prevented nor do they excuse themselves;
and you see moral depravity openly manifest and men being content with men and women satisfied by woman;
and you see the believer silent, his word not being accepted;
and you see the sinful lying and he is not refuted nor does his deceit redound upon him;
and you see the lowly despising the great;
and you see the wombs cut open;
and you see he who boasts of moral depravity is laughed at and is not spurned;
and you see young men being handed over like women and women cohabiting with women and their numbers increasing;
and you see men spending their wealth on things other than pious deeds and no one opposes or hinders them;
and you see the onlooker turn his back on the efforts of the believer;
and you see one person molesting his neighbor and no one prevents it;
and you see the unbeliever joyful because he does not see gladness in the believer when he sees corruption in the world;
and you see alcoholic drinks being drunk openly...
and you see women occupying places in the assemblies just as men do and usury is carried out openly and adultery is praised...
and you see the forbidden things made legal and the legal things forbidden;
and you see that religion becomes a matter of opinion and Scripture and its laws fall into disuse;
and you see the leaders drawing close to the unbelievers and away from good people;
and you see the leaders corrupt in their rule;...
and you see men eating what their wives have obtained as a result of their immorality and knowing this and persisting in it;...
and you see places of entertainment appearing which no one who passes them forbids them and no one is bold enough to put an end to them;
and you see a worshiper only praying in order that the people may see him;
and you see the experts in religious law devoting themselves to things other than religion, seeking the world and leadership;
and you see the people living together like animals;
and you see the pulpit from which fear of God is enjoined but the speaker does not act in the manner he has enjoined others to act;...
and when you see the tokens of truth that I have taught, then be aware [of the advent of the Mahdi] and seek salvation from God."
-- The Sixth Imam Jafar As-Sadiq (703–765 AD)
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