Being the observing Shia that he is, President Ahmadinejad (let’s call him PAM, for short) has adopted for himself a Marjae Taghleed (Spiritual Guide, Point of Emulation), as recommended by Shia doctrine. The Spiritual Guide, chosen from the ranks of the clergy, supposedly personifies a living example of piety to be consulted in all matters, revered and emulated.
It is no secret that Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi (let’s call him AMY, for short) is Ahmadinejad’s Point of Emulation. AMY is nicknamed crocodile for his reptilian brains, by his numerous “admirers.” Given the high office Ahmadinejad holds, he has free access to AMY and frequently seeks solace and guidance from him on religious as well as matters of the state. Furthermore, AMY often times serves the role of father figure, confidant, as well as therapist for PAM.
Recently, petrified by a vision, PAM rushed to AMY for interpretation of the meaning of his vision and the course of action he should take. Below is a digest of what transpired between PAM and AMY.
PAM. Your Holiness, no words can adequately express my infinite gratitude to you for your unfailing generosity to this worthless speck, for your willingness to see me, for your priceless counsels…
AMY. (Okay Speck speak up, he says to himself). Yes, yes. No need, no need. Please proceed. What is troubling you my son?
PAM. Your Holiness, I had a vision—an incredible and disturbing vision. I could not sleep the night, counted the minutes until I could attend your presence and find relief from my torment…
AMY. Yes?
PAM. Last night, I was pulled by an irresistible force to pilgrimage the holy mosque at Jaamkaaraan…
AMY. (Sighing exasperatedly and saying, “Oh, oh, not again”). Yes?
PAM. Your Holiness, you will excuse my imposition if I report to you in some details. It is a matter of great disturbance to me. I beg your forgiveness in advance for wasting your invaluable time…
AMY. You are already doing so by not getting to the narrative. Please proceed.
PAM. Yes, Your Holiness. As always, you are so correct and wise. Yes, as I was about to say, it was last night, this very past Friday. As it is my habit I performed the ablution, secluded myself in my chamber and busied myself with earnest prayers of thanksgiving to God, the Prophet, and the Pure Imams. I particularly prayed to the object of my heart, the Hidden Imam, the Saaheb-u-Zamaan__ Lord of the Age…
AMY. (If this s.o.b. was not the president of our nation I would already have him tossed out). Yes, that is commendable that you prayed so earnestly. So, what is so unusual about that?
PAM. Your Holiness, I am getting to that part. You, in your infinite wisdom have frequently admonished me, “Patience is Godly while haste is Satanic.” Hence, I am taking your advice and describing things in details hoping that I do not tax your patience.
AMY. (Well, you take in a snake, you live with a snake. Hear out the bastard). Yes?
PAM. Immersed as I was in my prayers, oblivious of the entire world, when bandeh manzel—my house [a way good Muslims refer to their wives]—entered the chamber and entreated me to take my evening meal. What an atrocious thing to do? Interrupting my state of utter bliss and spiritual ecstasy in order to take food? But, women! What is that old saying, “Women are catastrophe, yet no home should be without one?” That is exactly what they are. Catastrophe…
AMY. (I certainly can think of many men who give women a run for that distinction. And you, my little idiot are definitely one of them. Except that no home should ever be cursed with your presence, and here you are inflicted on an entire nation). Yes, yes, I have heard that gem.
PAM. My bandeh manzel is an insistent woman. She has her ways of doing things in matters domestic. She insists that I eat and drink more nurturing food to gain strength since on my frail shoulders rests the responsibility of leading God-fearing Muslims of our nation, nay the entire world of Islam…
AMY. (I wager that she has found you sub-strength in performing on her, you little weasel. Just think what the faith of God has come down to—for an imp like you seeing himself as the one to lead the Muslim world). Yes, yes, it is so. Please get to the main point—the vision.
PAM. After consuming a sumptuous meal, together with delectable beverages and partaking of a few puffs of smoke, bandeh manzel felt amorous—if you know what I mean?
AMY. (No, I really do not know what you mean. I can not fathom any woman, naaghes-ul-aghl—[mentally deficient that women are by nature]—would feel amorous toward a monkey like you). Yes?
PAM. Having discharged my conjugal duty, once again I embarked on deep meditation…
AMY. (I bet you did discharge). Which wife?
PAM. The first one, Sakeeneh Sultan. She is so demanding Your Holiness.
AMY. Yes, yes. Women, as they get older they become less pleasing and more pain. This is one of the reasons that we men are allowed tajdeede faraash—renewal of bedding [bedding in this case means wife]. No matter, proceed.
PAM. Your Holiness, would you overlook my impertinence if I am to ask you a personal question? I am terribly embarrassed to present you with this question. But, it is of vital importance to me…
AMY. Proceed.
PAM. When you are in amorous disposition, how do you convey your desire to a wife?
AMY. Simplicity itself, my dear son. I whistle.
PAM. But how would whistling convey the message to the desired wife?
AMY. I whistle a different tune for each zaeefeh—[weak-one—another Islamic way of referring to women].
PAM. Ingenious. It is an outstanding solution indeed. But, what if a zaeefeh finds herself in amorous mood? How does she signal her desire?
AMY. Simplicity, again. She enters my chamber and asks, “Did you whistle, sir?” Enough of all this side-tracking, please proceed with the vision.
PAM. Thank you, Your Holiness. You, with your infinite wisdom, never fail to resolve my profoundest of puzzlements. Yes, back to the vision. Deeply immersed in meditation, I lost track of time. Suddenly the room was filled with luminous light, two magnificent angels appeared. I was completely overwhelmed. Beads of sweat covered me from head to toe, tears gushed out of my eyes, and I felt soaked all over…
AMY. (You little creep. I wager you had pissed all over yourself). You said that you consumed a sumptuous meal and delectable beverages. What kind of beverages did you imbibe, my son? Were they by any chance, God forbid, the kind that should never touch our lips? And you also said that you had a few puffs of smoke after the meal. You must tell me about that too.
PAM. Your Holiness, no, no. I swear on the Quran that not a drop of that satanic brew did touch my lips last night or ever…
AMY. (Why is it that anytime anyone wants to lie, they swear on the Quran?). Yes, yes. I do believe you that not a drop of the satanic brew has ever touched your lips. I heard that line from another president of our country, Akbar Refsanjani—a pistachio farmer turned billionaire by stealing the nation blind. Yet, all evidence indicated that the conniving hypocrite was a habitual imbiber of alcoholic beverages. To make matters worse, rumor circulated that he had a special affection for Scotch whisky and Bourbon, distillations of the infidels. No matter.
PAM. Did he actually break that cardinal law of our faith?
AMY. Well, I had personally seen in him signs of drunkenness and decided to investigate the matter for myself. First, I confronted him and he brought out the Quran, placed one hand over it and the other over his black heart and swore that not a drop of any form of satanic brew has ever touched his lips. Never trusting a word of him, I assigned one of my loyal agents to stealthily keep Akbar under observation, and guess what he found out? You get three guesses.
PAM. I give up, Your Holiness.
AMY. Mullah Akbar was telling the truth, just like you are. Not a drop of the stuff touched his lips, while his gut got loaded to the rim. Do I have to spell it out for you? Fine. He was drinking right from the bottle, using straws. Not a drop was touching his lips. You must have at some point attended Akbar’s hozeh—religious seminary—of chicanery. Have you?
PAM. Your Holiness, it is for this very reason that I have chosen you as my Spiritual Guide. Not only are you a true man of God, you have unsurpassed intelligence—something that I sorely lack. Admitting my sins to you is like confessing to the All-forgiving and Merciful God. You recognize my failings, forgive my sins, and admonish me to do the right things and to mend my ways…
AMY. Now, be done with the confession and get to the vision. And the puffs of smoke you had? Opium, correct? The stuff is not forbidden in our faith. I can not chastise you for its use. Why do you not limit yourself to the ones that are sanctioned? Does not the holy Quran command us, “Eat and drink of what we have given you?” Of course we must refrain from the use of the ones that are specifically forbidden, pork, alcohol and the blood of the dead.
PAM. Are we allowed to drink the blood of the living?
AMY. (Wise ass s.o.b.). We suck the blood of the living of people. Can't you see the emaciated skeletons of our poor people? They do not have much blood. And that is the way it should be. They prosper and we will have a rebellion on our hand. It is either them or us. And I say, it better be us.
PAM. Yes, yes Your Holiness. Admitting that you are correct is as superfluous as saying that the Quran is the book of God. It is self-evident. Yes, indeed I took a few puffs of the stuff, but I did not inhale…
AMY. Now, you are using a page from the book of another conniver president. This one was the president of the Great Satan, Clinton the name. Recall what he claimed? That he had smoked marijuana, but had not inhaled. Also fornicating with that young Jewess, Monica was it? Yes, Lewinski or such. The fool made matters worse by saying that he did not have sex with that woman. Then, when he was proven lying, he was demanding people define “truth.” What are you doing my son, scouting the world to learn every form of deception?
PAM. I apologize for taxing your patience, Your Holiness…
AMY. While I am at it, I would like to elucidate the Clinton-Lewinski shenanigan. It was just another case of Zionists controlling every aspect of America: its finances, by owning the Wall Street; its culture, by monopolizing Hollywood; and, its government by having the politicians by their proverbial. Clinton was not 100 percent in their pocket. He paid some lip service to the cause of our Palestinian brothers. So, the Zionist set up the Monica trap for him and they almost had him impeached. Yet, they stopped short of impeaching him, because all others got the message. Fail to toe the line of Zionism, and you do it at your own peril.
PAM. Yes indeed, Your Holiness. It is precisely the way I see it. Zionism and America are two sides of a bad penny; two names for the same satanic entity. Once we defeat one, we destroy them both.
AMY. Yes. As for you being the president of our God-fearing nation, it is understandable that you are in a very delicate and difficult position; that you rightfully need to master the art of statesmanship and exercise it to full effect to the advantage of our people. You should study your predecessor’s practices. You know who I mean, not the thieving pistachio farmer but the smiling mullah Khatami: The conman who had the world fooled by his rhetoric on “Dialogue of Civilizations,” reciting the names and works of infidel philosophers, while all along pushing his agenda forward. The Master Cotton Killer…
PAM. Pardon me for interrupting. But, what is a Cotton Killer?
AMY. There are two major ways of killing your enemies. The most obvious and crude type is the overt method—use of the sword or its modern versions. These weapons, as deadly as they are, are not easy to use without producing undesirable consequences for the user. The other is the covert method—Cotton killing. The latter is most deadly and if practiced skillfully, it can kill without anyone suspecting a thing. You perform the latter while smiling and appearing most gentle all along. See how the Cotton Killer Khatami in the course of his eight years as president managed to kill the budding movement for democracy and secularism? Now, you have it easy. Thousands of troublemakers are either dead, in prison or in exile. It is credit to the smiling mullah, and no one can really pin any blames on him, even to this day.
PAM. (How can Cotton Killing work for my mission, how could I eradicate Israel by this method, and pave the way for the Hidden Imam to appear? Each problem requires its own solution. I can realistically achieve my objective by the bomb. But, Israel is in a small area of Palestine. Palestinians and Jordanians are within an earshot. A bomb can get them also. No matter, those people are not true Muslims. They are Sunnis. They deserve what is coming to them. What about our Shia brothers in the Baka Valley nearby? Well, we all must make sacrifices for the cause. They will go to heaven anyway…)
AMY. My son, wake up. Speak up. Where are you?
PAM. I apologize, Your Holiness.
AMY. No matter, tell me about the vision. (Somehow Friday nights seem to be the nights for visions. Every other two bits lout imbibes the satanic brew, takes a few puffs and in his drunken opium-induced trance has visions).
PAM. Your Holiness, I am afraid that I am taking the risk of making a jackass of myself…
AMY. (You already have done that many times, take the next bus). No matter, no matter.
PAM. As I was saying, overwhelmed as I was, soaked and shaking uncontrollably with excitement, the two magnificent angels, grabbed me, each under one arm and in an instant I found myself in Jaamkaaraan. I am certain that only you can fully appreciate the ecstasy that enveloped me. I felt that the Imam had sent his very own emissaries to take me to his hallowed presence…
AMY. (Horse feathers, you bastard. Do I have to listen to you gherd—a derogatory term for monkey). Get to the point and leave the details out. I have a seminar to attend to.
PAM. Yes Your Holiness. Next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of the well in semi darkness and I saw the visage of the beloved of our hearts…
AMY. Are you absolutely certain that it was the blessed Imam?
PAM. Now that you mention it, I can not swear on the Quran that it was him, particularly after what transpired in my extended meeting with him…
AMY. Strange things transpired?
PAM. Yes, unbelievably strange and frightening indeed. For this very reason I sought your presence to relieve me of my perplexity.
AMY. It sounds serious. You must tell me all about it.
PAM. Fearing to run the risk of boring you Your Holiness, I shall make it short…
AMY. (Boring me? You are killing me). Please continue. So, you are not certain that it was our Beloved? Then why bother with the vision. It may have been nothing more than what we call khaabe shekammee—gut-overload dreaming—as the saying goes. Or, it could be that the demon alcohol had done its mischief.
PAM. No, no, Your Holiness. It was no such a thing, since I have had those types on occasion. Yet, this vision was far from being due to perturbations of the guts by excessive eating and drinking…
AMY. No matter. Proceed.
PAM. Thank you. I had difficulty breathing in that tiny pit. It seemed like the walls were pressing on me from all sides. Dampness and stench were intolerable. It broke my heart to think that the beloved Imam had taken refuge in that dreadful hole for over a thousand years. I looked all over hoping that there was a passageway that led to paradise where the Imam actually resided. I found none. Of course it was fairly dark in there…
AMY. Yes, yes. Wells are known to be dark, and the deeper the well, the darker the well. And it is believed that where the Imam is in occlusion is several leagues deep.
PAM. Now I understand. No wonder I could not breathe. No wonder the stench and dampness. No ventilation. That is what I say.
AMY. (You must have lost control of your systems, covered under the quilt. That is what I say you little twerp). Yes? Please relate the salient points and dispense with the ancillary material.
PAM. Yes Your Holiness. As you can imagine I had so many questions to ask. I did not know where to start. But, I felt that I must first thank him for all the things he has done for me. It is only decent to do that, is it not Your Person?
AMY. (If I and my hozeh were not dependent on your financial largess, I would have kicked your bonny hindquarters out of here, the minute you arrived. You are killing me). Please get to the salient points.
PAM. You will forgive me, in obedience to your command, if I share with you some of the points in a random manner as they come to my mind?
AMY. (I was not aware that you had a mind). Yes.
PAM. I thanked the Imam for making me, his servant, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and his Viceroy.
AMY. (Why thank him? Thank the illiterate Khameniei, the egomaniac supreme guide. He is the one who hand-picked you and gave the desperate people of Iran a choice between a crook and a monkey. People picked you, the monkey, hoping that you would not loot them as heartlessly as the crook Refsanjani would). Yes?
PAM. I thanked him for answering my prayer by inflicting severe harm on that fat Zionist dog, Ariel Sharon. Do you know what the beloved said in response? You get three guesses just like you in your fairness allowed me three guesses earlier.
AMY. I give up.
PAM. You would not believe this, Your Holiness. I swear on my late father’s grave…
AMY. (Oh, oh, he must be telling the truth. He is not swearing on the Quran). Yes?
PAM. The Imam looked puzzled and asked, “Who is Ariel Sharon? I do not get the papers here regularly. Besides, it is too dark to read and my contacts with the outside world are infrequent and not very reliable.” Would you believe that? See what I mean when I said that the pilgrimage was most perplexing?
AMY. I see. I see. Is this the end of it, I hope?
PAM. I am not perplexed because I am dumb. It is a most confounding thing to be coming from the one who knows everything, spoken or unspoken, overt or covert…
AMY. (You could have fooled me. No, you are correct. You have to work your way up to dumbness. Idiot. That is what I say you are. Idiot). Yes?
PAM. I can see that I am taxing your patience. It shows in your visage. In any event, I will make it short. Then he asked me to tell him a bit about Sharon. I did. He was visibly upset when I related to him the terrible things that this man and his Zionist occupiers of our holy land have done and continue to do to the God-fearing Palestinian Muslims in their very own ancestral land. Then the Imam wanted to write down Sharon’s name. He said, “I must be getting old. I do not remember things like I used to. I have become very forgetful. I must write things down.”
AYM. (I might just forget that you, imitation human being, are the President and have my servants cut your both earlobes, stuff them in your mouth, before tossing you out of my chamber). Did he truly say that?
PAM. Yes, he did indeed. The sad part is that there was no one around to bring him his writing instruments. No one showed up. Just the two of us squeezed in the terribly confining quarters. I reached in my pocket and offered him my PDA. He was visibly upset when I did that and chastised me, “What in the world is this? This is not a writing instrument. Are you mocking me?” See what I mean by this terribly puzzling vision?
AMY. Yes.
PAM. Moments later, he calmed down and I decided to thank him for commissioning Imam Khomeini on his mission of reviving Islam. Do you want to guess what his response was? Again, you will definitely get three guesses, even more if you like.
AMY. What was his response? (You slime).
PAM. Unlike his oblivion about Sharon, he indeed recognized Khomeini. What he said however, seemed blasphemous to this speck of dust, particularly coming from the Imam. He said, “That imposter villain? Why do you call him imam in the first place? You fools have no sense, do you? He was an imam, murdering thousands of Iran’s young men and women for the sin of wanting to be treated as humans, rather than fanatical jackasses like you and your ilk? Tangling with the accursed Saddam in a senseless war and between the two of them maiming and killing millions of people from both sides? He was imam by making stone-age rulings, supporting terrorism and promoting a doctrine of hate? By dishonoring an ancient nation, making Iran a pariah, the nation of Cyrus the Great who was the very first author of the Charter of Human Rights and by thoroughly sullying the reputation of Islam? That killer is presently, and forever, is paying for his crimes. No 72 virgins for him, no rivers of milk and honey, no lush fruits, just the full amenities of the dreadful hell. He shares a cell with Hitler, soon to be joined by Saddam…
AMY. Please that is enough…
PAM. Only one last thing, Your Holiness. I begged the Imam to appear and set the world aright. I told him that it was beyond any mortal’s capability to do so. Do you know what he said?
AMY. No, and I do not want three guesses. Please be done with it.
PAM. He said, in unequivocal terms that we should not accommodate the Great Satan and its little proxy, the Zionist State; that any negotiated settlement of our difference would constitute appeasement of the satanic forces; and, that we should take the struggle to its very end. It is then and only then that he would emerge and rescue the world. Would you believe that? Is it not wonderful? He will be coming, only if we do our assignment and prepare the conditions…
AMY. (I hope that he brings with him the sure cure for the mentally-deranged like you).Yes, yes, yes. I believe that is enough. I recommend that you completely forget about this vision and attend to your urgent duties as the head of our nation during these turbulent times.
Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He and his family escaped Iran after the radical Islamic revolution. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com.
