It is hilarious to see powdered, rosy cheek, fully decked and made-up Ahmadinejad on CNN cultivating a moderate image!
A unique quick transformation from a recent Philistine status for someone who is regarded as uncouth, ignorant, uncultured, and indifferent or hostile to artistic and intellectual achievement to enlightened, cultured, progressive and symbol of toleration. May I suggest that two Latin terms define his actions first Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) the other Pelle sub agnina latitat mens saepe lupina. (Under a sheep’s skin often hides a wolfish mind)
Fareed Zakaria on his status updates from Tehran reported that according to the talk of the people he met in Tehran with was of the rift between President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.
‘Now what is hard for most Westerners to understand is that in this debate in Iran, Ahmadinejad is the moderate one. He has been trying to clip the wings of the clergy; he has advocated loosening up some of the restrictions on women; he speaks of Iran’s pres-Islamic past. And many here believe that he wants to be the Iranian president who normalizes relations with the United States. But with all that is going on now – between the Saudi plot and the nuclear deadlock – that appears a distant prospect.’
President Ahmadinejad double speak in the CNN interview gives me a hideous sensation of a onset of new-fangled impetus to the confrontation that is so evidently unsettling for the presentSupreme Leader. Mr Ahmadinejad on CNN is refining a restrained image to make his final assault to wrest control on the nucleus and hub of the Iranian present orthodox regime. For months there is increasing bad blood between the ruling theocracy that has been piling pressure on Ahmadinejad and arresting his allies to blunt his to challenge the near-absolute authority of the cleric-ruled system that has controlled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Supreme leader warning that the post of elected president could someday be scrapped has put some cat amongst the pigeons in the Presidents camp. The direct and harsh words by Khamenei advocate a wide agenda: additional contraction of leash accorded to Ahmadinejad and warning to others in the wings like ‘Rafsanjani’ that orthodoxy are ready to take drastic measures to protect what’s theirs. Though no immediate threat of overhauls appear on the horizon after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comment but the mere mention of eliminating Iran’s highest elected office shows the severity and scope of the power struggle between Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
President Ahmadinejad unquestionably has in response upped the game and has challenged the authority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The Islamic Republic is unable to steer clear of the process of dialectical materialism; the Marxian concept of reality in which material things are in the constant process of change brought about by the tension between conflicting or interacting forces, elements, or ideas. The implosion of a system based on hierarchy of sacredness is in entirety of evolution. The dynamics of conflict within echelons of power has its own momentum, I feel the rising temperatures within the power structure. May be Iranian street and bazaars will now have to go through the embarrassment to add the name of Ahmadinejad to list of ex-wolves – present sheep’s moderates like Khatami, Mousavi and Rafsanjani! In a country where Mullah producing and patronising factories in Qom produces 20,000-25,000 Mujtahids every year what option one has?
The most important figure in Iran of today is Ayatollah Khamenei in his role as Supreme Leader; he has repeatedly denounced the West, and in particular the United States. His veto is final in Iranian political affairs. He is an ‘Icon’ of country’s conservative establishment and one of the three defining influences of the revolution a bedrock on which the clerical rule rests. (the other two being the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the president of Iran for much of the 1990s, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani )
In June, 1989 when the Assembly of Experts appointed him to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of Iran who was a Source of Emulation, the constitution had to be amended to allow the post to be held by a lower-ranking theologian. since June 1989. As a president for two successive terms from 1981-1989 he was frequently at odds with the Prime Minister, Ali Hossein Mousavi, whom he alleged as left-leaning. Irony is that Mr Mousavi had then the total backing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. Their conflicting views on economic, social and sacrosanct policies were left to aggravate. On becoming the Supreme Leader on the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, he revised the constitution and abolished the post of prime minister. He definitely lacks the charm and popular support of his predecessor.
His 1997 clashes with Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a respected scholar who ranked higher in the hierarchy and who questioned the powers of the Supreme Leader led to the closure of his religious school, an attack on his office in Qom and to a period of house arrest. Ayatollah Khamenei has time after time backed the decision-making role of the old-fashioned and traditionalist Guardian Council.
For any theocratic coup d’état against the Supreme President Ahmadinejad seemingly must have high of hopes from Majles-e Khebregan-e Rahbari afterall Mahdavi Kani, bumped off Rafsanjani and was elected in March 2011 with Ahmadinejad hard-line support.
Yesterday hardliners are today’s moderate, imagine this statement from Rafsanjani the moderate face of the Iran today ‘When the shah gave us freedoms, we drove him out of the country. We won’t make that mistake ourselves.’
One really doesn’t know who is the sheep or who is the wolf; everyone cross dresses in the Majles-e Khebregan-e Rahbari, a deliberative body of 86 Mujtahids that is charged with electing and removing the Supreme Leader of Iran and supervising his activities.
One needs to remember that the election for the fourth assembly 2007 had one particular note that was the victory of pragmatistAyatollah Rafsanjani list, over hard-line candidates associated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for positions in the 86-member Assembly of Experts. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was re-elected as chairman. In March 2011 Rafsanjani lost his post as head of the powerful Assembly of Experts as a result of intensive lobbying by “hardliners and supporters” of presidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad , replaced by Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani. Rafsanjani withdrew from the election for head to “avoid division.” The current chairman of the Assembly Mahdavi Kani, elected in March 2011. Assembly of Experts is elected every 8 years the term formed in 2007, will exceptionally last ten years due to the “election aggregation” plan of Iran, put into place to allow the government to run one simultaneous election for both the Assembly of Experts and Parliament, thereby economizing election costs.
To dislodge the power of the Supreme leader President Ahmadinejad has taken Rafsanjani centrist and “pragmaticconservative “position. He supports a free market position domestically, favouring privatization of state-owned industries, and a moderate position internationally, seeks to avoid conflict with the United States and the West.
The big question is will Rafsanjani support ex-rival and loathed Ahmadinejad? Like Supreme Soviet in 1990, Iranian orthodox system is giving up as the demands of the people cannot be met by intransigence of the sacrosanct antiquated ideological beliefs. From Bazargan to Mousavi and now may be Ahmadinejad have all realised at long last that ‘Imam’s kite cannot fly’ the bread and butter of the world requires both duniya and Ikharat!
His pre-occupation with grandiosity of ‘Mahdaviat’:
I have a little suspicions of Mr Ahmadinejad who might have some hallucinations and illusions of far greater cause, he may have thoughts of a bigger role for his corporeal menial existence that of the 12th Imam. Everyone recalls the occurrence of sacred rapture during the UN speech he was giving. Mr Ahmadinejad explained how one of his colleagues claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN. Ahmadinejad ‘Mahdaviat’ is close to his heart and that demands ‘Global Chaos Creation.’ “Presidential obsession” with ‘Mahdiviat’ leads Mr. Ahmadinejad to “a conviction that leaves little room for compromise. He thinks that the Mahdi will come in near future as his knight in shining armour? The only missing link that in Presidents opinion delays Mahdi’s arrival is that world is still far too peaceful, the degree of clash and disasters that will set the chain of celestial events of ‘Mahdiviat’ have to gather speed.
The altercation with America and Israel and wish to empower Iran with nuclear programs are all designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi’s return.” Creation of universal strife and commotion is very much a part of Mahdiviat. Peace and cohabitation in the world means ‘Mahdiviat’ becomes superfluous. Iranian President is duty bound to help create environ which is conducive to Mahdi return, unfortunately ‘universal peace’ does not help the prophecies that are integral part of his understanding of the scriptures.
The President does puts his money where his mind is, in 2004, as mayor of Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad clandestinely instructed the city council to construct a magnificent boulevard to orchestrate and prepare for the Mahdi arrival, as a President he has allocated $17 million for a blue-tiled mosque closely associated with mahdaviat in Jamkaran, south of the capital. Ahmadinejad is actually under the impression that the Mahdi is going to reappear soon, he has been anticipating for far too long. In a ‘hadith’ widely regarded as authentic, Prophet Muhammad stated:
“Even if the entire duration of the world’s existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before the Day of Judgment, God (Arabic: Allah) will expand that day to such a length of time, as to accommodate the kingdom of a person out of my Ahl al-Bayt who will be called by my name. He will then fill the Earth with peace and justice as it will have been filled with injustice and tyranny before then.” Sahih Tirmidhi, V2, P86, V9, P74-75.
His effort to present a new powdered and smart beautified image is in my opinion new basis of his believe that he may be the ‘vessel’ in which the Imam may return to establish the rule of God on earth, a messianic prophecy being satisfied by ‘The President.’ A Good-looking 12th Imam is vital and his CNN pose is the best effort from worn-down, faded and fatigued image of ex-Mayor of Tehran.
“I felt it myself too,” Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. “I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It’s not an exaggeration, because I was looking.”They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.”The actual reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad”.
Their niggling doubt is that Iran’s president in fact relish a conflict with the West in the belief that it would reawaken the courage of the Islamic revolution and speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam. Present insanity, psychosis, wars and craftiness in politics of the Middle East has religious historical conjecture; higher the chaos and bigger the noise, the greater the chances of a divine intervention. Very few in the West can understand the undercurrents of self- obliteration so evident in ‘Mahdaviat.’
In opinion of the present ‘Hujjati leadership’ the higher the level of ‘expectation’ greater is the degree of their devoutness. To hasten coming of Imam they consider their right to further the mayhem and bedlam, after all the global level of chaos has to increase in frequency and intensity so that Imam finally decides to appear. The bloodier the earth becomes, the higher the chances of emergence of Imam are from greater Occultation, lesser the civility the better are the chances, so the ‘leadership’ is sincerely bound by their ideological belief to create problems. In effect ‘increased expectations of coming of Imam’ have justified their inclination of intensified wicked doings. Ideology has helped ‘global chaos creation’ as a corner stone of the state policy.
Muhammad al Mahdi ((868- ?- the guided) is the 12th and last Imam of the Twelver Shi’i, and is also known as Muhammad al Muntazar (the awaited). The Twelver Shi’i believe that he was born to a Byzantine slave named Narjis Khatun, and that his birth was kept quiet by his father, the Eleventh Imam, Hassan al Askari, because of the intense persecution of the Shi’is at that time. Mahdi is a ‘Myth’; all non-secular societies expect help from heavens when they make an error of judgment in earthly affairs. Two recent examples are, that of Ahmadinejad and Muttawakil (Taliban FM), both looking to lead the ‘kingdom of justice’ with heavenly help before the Day of Judgment that ‘Mahdi’ will institute.
The Taliban’s preoccupation with heavenly help is well known- their FM; Muttawakil expected the heavenly forces to protect Taliban from destruction of the US forces: the birds will appear from heavens and destroy the planes and attackers like they did in times of Abraha. He invoked this passage from Quran in a pre-Afghan war interview; ( Surat al-Fîl): ‘Seest thou not how thy Lord dealt with the Companions of the Elephant? Did He not make their treacherous plan go astray? And He sent against them flights of Birds Striking them with stones of baked clay. Then did He make them like an empty field of stalks and straw (of which the corn) has been eaten up.'[Qur’ân: 105]
The Mahdi, according to majority Sunni and Shi’ite tradition, will arise at some point before the Day of Judgment, institute a kingdom of justice, and will in the last days fight alongside the returned Jesus against the Dajjal (Antichrist or false Messiah). Mahdi hidden since birth, reappeared at age of 6 to assert his claim to the Imamate, only to then disappear down a well to avoid the sad fate of his father and grandfather. For the next seventy years he maintained contact with his followers through a succession of four assistants, each known as Bab (Gate), Uthman al Amir; his son Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Uthman; Abu’l Qasim Husayn ibn Ruh an Nawbakhti; and Abu’l Husayn Ali ibn Muhammad as Samarri. The period when he used the 4 Babs as his form of contacting the Shi’is is known as the Lesser Occultation.
On his deathbed in 941 CE, the fourth Bab, as Samarri produced a letter from the Imam stating that there should be no successor to as Samarri and that from that time forward the Mahdi would not be seen until he reappeared as champion of the faithful in the events leading to the Judgement Day. Therefore, after 941 CE there has been no earthly _expression of the Imamate. This period is known as the Greater Occultation. Titles of the 12th Imam include: Sahib az Zaman (Master of the Age), Sahib al Amr (Master of Command), al Qa’im (the one to arise), Bagiyyat Allah (remnant of Allah) and Imam al Muntazar (the awaited Imam). – anyone who has professed to be the Mahdi so far has been cruelly dealt with, killed or banished, so this myth is likely to continue; a legend for time immemorial; a cultish folklore religious chronicle which will never end because the hero, i.e., ‘The Mahdi,’ as soon as one claims to be so, will face charges of apostasy.
I don’t think that “Khomienites’ “expected Mahdi” and ‘Wahhabis’ “return of Christ,” short of Allah climbing down on earth from his heavenly throne can be easily agreeable as authorities vested in a mortal completely wrest controls from the present rulers of these countries. How can these self appointed leaders and despots give control to someone who appears new and claims authority from Allah, even his is the one he will be dealt the way previous appearances have been handled. ‘Mahdi’ and ‘return of Christ’ within the orthodoxy of Islam is like their faith in ‘Allah’ as far as the omnipotent and omnipresent remains hidden and without a physical form the conviction is crystal-clear, however a ‘corporeal existence’ would breed scorn. The Shiites and the Sunnis universal acceptance is implausible as scripture based verification processes are at two extremities.
The present divisions within Islam are so wide apart that they cannot agree on a ‘set’ of claimants for such a holy title. One should not forget that these holy figures will carry the combined authority of the Prophet and Allah, so ‘Saudis and Khomienites’ will have to give up the key of ‘oil and treasury’ to the claimant; the temporal and the sacred power will be invested in these expected manifestation who would lead them to ultimate victory. Anytime any manifestation made such a claim in Saudia and Iran, he has been dealt with an iron fist. Many people through history have claimed to be the Mahdi, a messianic figure expected in Islam. These have had varying degrees of success in convincing fellow Muslims of their station. However, the predominant set of Muslims regards them as false claimants, or pretenders. These claimants were often at the centre of political intrigue or radical social upheaval. In the 8th century was Salih ibn Tarif – 10th century-Said ibn Husayn-12th century Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Tumart-15th century Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri -19th century Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad (The Báb)- Muhammad Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad 20th century- Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan Juhayman ibn-Muhammad ibn-Sayf al-Utaibi. Ahmadinejad as well as King Abdullah and Ummah as a whole will make sure to behead any impostor who would have dared announce such a ‘ undertaking.’
Belief is one thing, acceptance in him is quite a different matter, they all sincerely belief in the holy arrivals rather it is a cardinal sin to question, who will certify them from ‘Allah’ is something that has so far remains unanswered. I am sure that someone appearing would meet the fate of others that were considered as heretic and impostors. Even a fair hearing is not accorded to any claimant; he starts from the unenviable station of falsehood. The barrier to meet the criteria of ‘Allah appointed’ is too towering. Egyptians refused Moses, Jews thought of Christ as superfluous, Qurayyash rebuked Mohammed, how would Ahmadinejad accept someone appearing as ordained from Allah?
It is satisfying for Ahmadinejad to expect deliverance from Allah for his nation that is falling behind in keeping in progress with the world, the notion of a divine leadership that will take them to the top is very intoxicating and opiate. The ‘failures’ of today can be postponed on ‘deliverance’ expected from appearance of Imam, this sells politically very well. The myth has to linger on it is the very ‘veiled nature’ of the passion that gives momentum and strength to the political grandstanding, rather may be political grandstanding find its roots in the divine assurances of the deliverance from the shackles of the infidels.
This whole ‘Mahdi’ thing is a cerebral fascination; it definitely helps the society that links clash and chaos to unfolding of a greater goal. A legendry saga has become a pseudo truth that might never come to pass but the hope that Islam will recoup the splendour of the past gives glimmering anticipation to the faithful. Ahmadinejad believes that one day the Imam will lead him to the obliteration of his entire class of enemies, eventually the faithful will reign supreme. The hurdles for any claimant are too high to surmount. It is a great feeling to have a Mahdi, but no good enough a mortal will satisfy the expectations. President Ahmadinejad for sure will cast the first stone to bury the man.
At the moment his confrontation with his present spiritual boss Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no small stake game; his Mahdiviat and survival depends on the outcome of this encounter. Ayatollah is no hushed silent lamb, he knows how to bite hard, this CNN interview signals the beginning of the end game for the President short of a coup d’état in . Rosy cheeked Mr Ahmadinejad come across pleasant and ‘a new wolf in a brand-new sheep clothing’ enters the arena of unfamiliar territory. A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is an idiom of Biblical origin The phrase originates in a sermon by Jesus recorded in the Christian New Testament: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves (Gospel of Matthew 7:15 – King James Version). The sermon then suggests that their true nature will be revealed by their actions (by their fruits shall ye know them, verse 16). If you are a sheep Mr. President break the chains of dogma and orthodoxy and bring all those walls of oppression down. Free Iran from the vestiges of ignorance and decline. That is the only way your true nature will be revealed!
