Ayatollah
Sees Global Islamic Mahdi Army
Calls
for Muslim nations to unite militarily under messianic figure
Posted: August 17, 2009
9:18 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Khamenei, through his spokesman Ali Saeedi, specifically beckoned the
nations of Turkey,
The purpose of uniting now, a report in Al
Arabiya explained, is to fight
"We have to train honest forces that can stop the obstacles that may
hinder the coming of the Mahdi like the
"While the belief in the Mahdi has been widely held by Shi'a Muslims,
it has taken on a dramatically more political tone in recent years since the
election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," explains Joel Richardson,
author of a new book called "The Islamic
Antichrist," which hypothesizes that Islam's prophesied Mahdi is one
and the same as the Bible's Antichrist.
According to Savyon and Y. Mansharof an Iranian scholar,
"From the establishment of the Islamic Regime in 1979 to Ahmadinejad's
rise to power in August 2005, Mahdism had been a religious doctrine and a
tradition that had no political manifestation. The political system
operated independently of this messianic belief and of the anticipation of the
return of the Mahdi. It was only with Ahmadinejad's presidency that this
religious doctrine has become a political philosophy
and taken a central place in politics."
Mahdism is now increasingly being used as a political tool
by appealing to the religious and nationalistic tendencies of various Muslims
groups. This particular call for Islamic unity stands out because of its
pan-Islamic, cross-sectarian appeal.
While many have assumed that the marked rise in fervor and devotion in
recent years in
According to Al-Arabiya, Saeedi emphasized that obedience to the Ayatollah
is the same as obedience to the Mahdi or the "guided one" – "who
is the prophesied savior of Islam."
With news arriving this past week that
Opening the conference this year, was Dr. Mahdi
Mostafavi, the chairman of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, who
spoke against the dangers and evils of Christian Zionism. "Putting an end
to the tyranny and brutality" of Zionism is one of the basic goals of
Mahdism, he explained.
Dr. Mostafavi also offered a wildly distorted version of the Christian end
time narrative. Claiming that Christians are making efforts to bring about the
Battle of Armageddon, he stated:
"In order to make this war happen they consider brutality, war and
violence allowed and in their propaganda, they ask Christians and especially
soldiers to create a situation for Jesus to reappear. These soldiers would be
considered martyrs if they are killed in this way and would be in the circle of
Messiah's Twelve disciples," Dr. Mostfavi explained.
"These evangelists try to reinforce their belligerent notion
ideologically even by mentioning verses from Gospel. They start war in
While the Christian narrative of the return of Jesus is one where Christians
passively await a savior to deliver them from an aggressive empire,
Islamic narratives often portray Muslims as aggressively and actively pursuing
Islamic world dominance, particularly over the nation of Israel.
This year, it was also announced that
One speaker at the conference, Abdollah Adam Gaya from
"[In order] to fight against the [Western] cultural
invasion against Islamic Shiite values, we must also export the Mahdism culture
to the West… Imperialist powers fear the growth of that culture and therefore
they are after attacking it. …"
"Propagating and defining the Mahdism Culture are the
most effective steps in order to establish unity among Muslim Nations of the
world because not only Mesianism and Mahdism are the common grounds for
understanding between all Muslims but between all religions in the world,"
he added.
While some Muslims have emphasized the peaceful nature of the Mahdi's reign,
many in
Adnan Oktar, a prominent Turkish intellectual and Sunni author has
repeatedly emphasized that under the Mahdi; no blood will be shed,
guns and weapons will be eliminated and any traditions which infer anything
different are unreliable.
Others however have a very different view. In His work Imam al-Mahdi, the
Just Leader of Humanity, Ayatollah Ibrahim al Amini, professor
at the
It's not only a hot book at Amazon, it is also hot in
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In "The
Islamic Antichrist," Richardson, a student of Islam, exposes Western
Christians to the Muslim traditions. He says most Christians have no idea of
the stunning similarities between the biblical Antichrist and the "Islamic
Mahdi."
The student of the Middle East says that after decades of reading
popular prophecy books and even best-selling fiction like the "Left
Behind" series, millions of evangelical Christians around the world are
expecting the Antichrist to emerge from a revived Roman Empire, which many have
assumed is associated with the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union.
Not so, argues
"The Islamic
Antichrist" is a book almost certain to be greeted in the Muslim world
with the same enthusiasm as Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses."
The author is prepared. He has written the book under a pseudonym to protect
himself and his family.
"The Bible abounds with proofs that the Antichrist's empire will
consist only of nations that are, today, Islamic," says
It had to be another empire that rose and fell and rose again that would
lead to rule of this "man of sin," described in the Bible. That
empire, he says, is the Islamic empire, which did conquer
Many evangelical Christians believe the Bible predicts a charismatic ruler,
the Antichrist, will arise in the last days, before the return of Jesus. The
Quran also predicts that a man, called the Mahdi, will rise up to lead the
nations, pledging to usher in an era of peace.