"I emphatically declare that today’s world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.
O, Almighty God, all men and women are Your creatures and You have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause." – Islamic Republic of Iran President [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before the UN General Assembly.
Some people are upset over this; Andy Sullivan is positively shredding his skirt. To me it sounds like Standard Fundie Talk.
Has he conveniently forgotten the American Christians who strive to support Israel so that Armageddon can happen on their schedule? Standard apocalyptic fundie bullcrap, no matter what religion it comes from.
The Ithna ‘Ashariyah* Shi‘ah developed their theology during the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid caliphates, when they were chronically out of power and also persecuted by the Sunni rulers. Their focus came to be on consoling the oppressed Shi‘ite masses to endure their lot with the expectation of future justice from the Awaited Imam. In the past, even when there were Shi‘ite rulers, Shi‘ism did not develop a theology of power, only powerlessness. When Khomeini gave political power to Shi‘ite theology, he invented a whole new theory to justify it, because no one had formulated it before.
What Ahmadinejad was talking about was this traditional theology of powerlessness. Shi‘ites are brought up believing that the wrongs of the world cannot be set right until the Awaited returns.
*Ithna ‘Ashariyah (Twelvers) are the largest sect of Shi‘ism. It predominates in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. The Twelfth Imam, the Awaited, whose name is Muhammad same as the Prophet, has been in “occultation” since the year 872 CE. His return in Shi‘ite eschatology is identified with the Mahdi. The Sunnis also have the concept of the Mahdi, but without as big an emphasis, and do not identify this figure with any Shi‘ite imams.
Hell, I don’t see how any reasonable Christian can look at that statement and not think “It sounds like he’s talking about the 2nd Coming” - it’s such an inoffensive statement to me (and I’m a foaming-mouth atheist)
Well, if you take the position that the Twelfth Imam is linked to (or is) the Mahdi and then you add in the attitudes of some Muslims who view the Mahdi in the way that some First Century Jews were supposed to have viewed the Messiah, (as a war lord who will set their world back to godliness through warfare), then you can easily get worked up that a prayer for the return of the Awaited is a call for the rest of the world to be crushed under the onslaught of the new resurgence of Islam.
As you note, that really is not much different than a lot of Christian fundie desires, but it is scarier (to Sullivan) when it is directed at your side instead of from your side.
(Actually, I am not sure that the Awaited and the Mahdi are looked upon in the same way. I had been under the impression (subject to correction) that the Awaited is viewed more in the way that Modern Judaism sees the Messiah, as the agent of God who will bring all things back in harmony with God’s will without necessarily waging war to accomplish that.)
Praying for the return of the Twelfth Imam is a pretty standard Shia thing to do. Guess what all these pilgrims who come to Samarra every year do there? That’s right, pray for his return. I’m baffled how anybody could find this out of the ordinary. I simply don’t see how this could be interpreted as a threat to attack and kill all non-muslims in the entire world.
The 6th Shi’a Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, is reported to have said:
“Before the appearance of the one who will rise, peace be upon him, the people will be reprimanded for their acts of disobedience by a fire that will appear in the sky and a redness that will cover the sky. It will swallow up Baghdad, and will swallow up Kufa. Their blood will be shed and houses destroyed. Death will occur amid their people and a fear will come over the people of Iraq from which they shall have no rest.”
Does that ring a bell? So perhaps we can understand some fundamentalist people thinking along apocalyptic lines. Although ortodoxy has it that nobody will know in advance when the Mahdi comes, and anybody who thinks he can figure it out is a fool.
Interestingly, according to the Shia faith, Jesus is going to appear at the same time as the Mahdi.
The scary part of his belief system, as I understand it, is that he believes that all of this can be engineered through sowing discord and violence.
If Christians believed not just in the second coming, but a second coming that could be triggered by, say, destroying Iran, you’d get the willies too if the leader of that Christian sect went around praying for the second coming while his followers built a nuclear bomb and kept telling Iran that it was soon going to be destroyed.
How about Christians who believe that the second coming can be triggered by the rebuilding of the Temple and who are trying to breed red heifers for the reconsecration?
Maybe I should have said something like ‘unusual’ instead of crazy. It doesn’t strike me as the kind of thing you have to be the head of a fanatical government to say.
Quite true. But to hear a head of government say such a thing, while (apparently) speaking in his official capacity, is profoundly disturbing. Provided he believes it. Does W really believe God talks to him, or is that just something he says for the sake of his evangelical base? Only W knows.
… [today’s world]* above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.*
Taken out of context like this, the above statement might have been proposed by an Idealist with one too many bong hits. The thing is, in context President Ahmadinejad isn’t even a Randian, is awkwardly sober and wasn’t just talking to me. He was talking to the World in a subtle manner that suggests prayer, he just … you know … he can’t cross himself like Chávez.
