"the Evil Has Landed..."

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1393620' date='Sep 26 2007, 04:59 PM']Ahmadinejad has never expressed a desire to kill all the Jews or destroy the US. He's come out with some pretty peculiar stuff, but neither of those things have been on the list. Muslims aren't big on Armageddon or the End Times; there is very little discussion of such things in Islamic circles. As for the mahdi, he is not a messiah in the sense that we understand the term. Many Shi'a Muslims believe that he is already here, but unseen - the Hidden Imam. It is a mystical concept, not a literal one.[/quote]

Maybe run-of-the-mill Muslims aren't big on Armageddon. But Ahmadinejad is not a run-of-the-mill Muslim. He is a part of a sect known as "the twelvers." They believe that the 12th Imam is still alive, in hiding, and will return at a time of chaos to bring the Muslims to world power.

More than that - they believe that it is their duty to trigger Armageddon by deliberately causing enough chaos ... and then the Mahdi will somehow look favorably upon them for doing so.

Two years ago Ahmadinejad has said that the time of the Mahdi's return will be in three years. That leaves one year remaining. He has also said that his nuke plans will be fully ready in one year from now.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad has built huge shrines and more about the place where this 12th Imam, the Mahdi, is thought to have disappeared - in order to welcome him upon his return.

An article posted on Catholic Exchange last December [[url="http://www.catholicexchange.com/en/node/8037"]FULL ARTICLE HERE[/url]] mentions a bit of this:

[quote]They believe that in a time of "terrible and unprecedented calamities" in which "persecution and injustice... engulf the earth," the Mahdi will return with Jesus at his side and "establish peace and justice on this earth."

If all this were just bad eschatology, it would not be our problem. But there's more — a lot more. It's clear from Ahmadinejad's words and actions that he sees himself and Iran as playing a pivotal role in establishing "peace and justice on this earth."
...

Since the Mahdi's return must be preceded by "terrible and unprecedented calamities," Ahmadinejad's prayer can only be answered at the cost of great suffering. And the crowds at the UN applauded.

Nobody knows the danger better than Israel. In an October 2005 speech Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "disgraceful stain [on] the Islamic world," that it must be "eliminated from the pages of history."

While the Iranians and some Western commentators tried to spin away this obvious threat, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin saw through the fog. He said that "this threat to Israel's existence, this call for genocide coupled with Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is a matter that the world cannot ignore."

And ignoring it would be insane when you recall Ahmadinejad's role during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s: He commanded the Basiji, teenage "volunteers" who "cleared [Iraqi] mines with their own bodies." Children![/quote]

A NY Times article [ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE]
[quote]With respect to Shiite eschatology, there is greater reason for concern. Iran’s Shiism is of the “Twelver” variety, so called because the 12th imam in the line of succession from the Prophet disappeared into a state of occultation — or being hidden — from which he is expected to return as the mahdi. ... Recently, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, contributed to renewed focus on the mahdi, by saying publicly that the mission of the Islamic revolution in Iran is to pave the way for the mahdi’s return, and by visiting the mosque at Jamkaran, on the outskirts of Qom, where, according to one tradition, the vanished imam was last seen. Some reports suggest that youth religion in Iran in increasingly focused on veneration of the vanished imam.

Islam has a vision of the end of days, with wars between the faithful and the tribes of Gog and Magog (Yuj and Majuj in their Arabic incarnation). Twelver Shiism is, at its core, an eschatological faith, focused on the ultimate return of the imam-mahdi, who will restore the Shiites to their rightful place and redeem their generations of suffering. Since the vanished imam is by tradition a human who has never died, but remains in occultation, he is also believed to affect the course of events even from his hidden place. And Shiite tradition fills in the picture of the mahdi’s return with an elaborate account of signs that will herald the event, including advance messengers, earthquakes and bloodshed.[/quote]

Jimmy Akin quoted this on his blog last year [[url="http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/06/apocalypse_soon.html"]LINK[/url]]

[quote]"In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

[...]

"Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

"Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines."[/quote]

[img]http://bokertov.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/world_without_zionism_conf.jpg[/img]
And the picture is from a conference that Ahmadinejad hosted a while back. He's been pretty clear on what he wishes to accomplish. It's just not getting the coverage it deserves in the media - and when it does no one is listening.

Edited September 27, 2007 by Lounge Daddy