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December 14, 2005

Iran: Messianic Influences of Islamist Leader Who Attacks Israel - Again

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already shocked the international community with his comments against Israel, which he made on October 26. He addressed a conference entitled "World Without Zionism" in which he said that Israel should be "wiped off the map", and at a meeting with Palestinians, he stated that "that a world without the US and Israel would be possible."

His comments against Israel brought outraged responses from various world governments, including Russia, an ally of Iran. Kofi Annan of the United Nations said he was "dismayed" by the statements. Even the leadership of the EU, which had consistently called for a diplomatic solution to the issue of illegal nuclear reprocessing at Isfahan, said in a joint statement "Calls for violence and for the destruction of any state are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community".

On December 8, he made a comment that Europe should host the nation of Israel on its soil. He also said: "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces. Although we don't accept this claim..."

These comments which were made at Mecca, at the meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit meeting, as reported by Malaysia's Star. He cast doubt upon the notion of the holocaust, but his views were generally overlooked by the 57 nation OIC leaders. They said Israel should withdraw to its 1967 borders, and no more. Their final resolution was to promote moderate interpretations of Islam, interpretations which are the polar opposite of Ahmadinejad's plans.

Analysts said Ahmadinejad was styling himself after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual father of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"He views himself as a leader of the world's Muslims, but it is interesting how very few Friday prayer leaders across the Islamic world picked up on his remarks," said one Iranian political analyst who asked not to be named.

Ali Ansari, of Scotland's St Andrews University, agreed Ahmadinejad was looking like an anachronism.

"The world has moved on," he said

Now, Ahmadinejad has once again made the world headlines for more anti-Israeli comments he made today, as reported by Reuters via Swiss Info and Forbes and Bloomberg.

He has again belittled the holocaust as a "myth" manufactured by the West, and suggested that Europe Canada or the US should have Jewish nation on their soil. He said that the West "fabricated a myth under the name 'Massacre of the Jews,' and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves".

He was speaking to supporters at Sistan-Baluchestan province in the south-east of the country, and the speech was broadcast live in state television.

"If you say and insist it's true that you killed 6 million Jews in crematoria during World War II, then why should the Palestinians pay for that? Our proposal is that you give a piece of your land in Europe, the U.S., Canada or Alaska. If you do that, the Iranian people will no longer protest against you," he said.

So what is going on? Once again he is in the world headlines, once again Western leaders are angered and critical, having reactions which would increase Ahmadinejad's approval rating among the extremists.

Today, in reference to his comments at the OIC, a Jewish writer, Jonathan Freedland, has an insightful article in today's Guardian. Freeland notes that in the Iranian fundamentalist newspaper Resalat, the holocaust denial comments are praised. "Many revisionist historians believe the story of the Holocaust is fake and have proved it by much evidence and documents", it states. The Siyasat-e Ruz commends Ahadinejad for "revealing the truth".

Freedland concluded:

Today's Muslims should want no part of such ignorance or bigotry. It demeans them. So Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain is to be applauded for his implicit condemnation of Ahmadinejad at the Stop the War conference at the weekend, telling his audience that, whatever their views, they could not deny the fact of the Holocaust. Now the Muslim Council of Britain should follow his lead, and that of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in the US, which also condemned this preacher of hate. And those non-Muslim progressives who have made alliances with Islamists should do the same. It may mean some uncomfortable conversations - but the days of denial must end.

But who and what is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Maybe before sketching a biography, one should just look at the style of dress of the man. It is westernised dress, but dress-sense from the 1970s, before the 1979 revolution hermetically sealed off decadent Western influences. He never wears a tie, and though he may look like a seedy shop-keeper, if you look at his jackets, they are well-cut and tailored. The closest style analogy would be Travolta in Saturday Night Fever from 1977.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was last exposed to the westernised US-approved world of the Shah while still a young man, and maybe that is why he is stuck in a timewarp from the period of the rise of the Islamic Revolution. He appears to be trying to muster support from the Islamic malcontents around the globe, aggrieved with the treatment of Palestinian comrades in the ummah. But Ahmadinejad is not an Ayatollah Khomeini. He is the first non-clerical president in Iran for 24 years. Ahmadinejad did not become president in a landslide vote. When Ayatollah Khomeini flew in to Iran from his exile in Paris to take charge of the country it was a mass national event.

Ahmadinejad was elected sixth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 28, 2005, and assumed the role of president in August. He had been previously elected as mayor of Tehran in May 3, 2003, where he had gained a reputation as a counter-reformist.

He was born into a blacksmith's family in Garmsar, near Tehran, on 28 October, 1956. He is one of seven children, but he graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Tehran, where he gained a PhD in traffic and transport. He had been a civil engineer and also a lecturer at the same university he graduated from.

According to the BBC:

Several of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in the US embassy in the months after the revolution say they are certain Mr Ahmadinejad was among those who captured them.

Ahmadinejad claims on his website that he joined the Revolutionary Guards voluntarily after the revolution.

Al Jazeera states:

As a young student, Ahmadinejad joined an ultraconservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity, the radical student group spawned by the 1979 Islamic Revolution and staged the capture of the US Embassy.

According to reports, Ahmadinejad attended planning meetings for the US Embassy takeover and at these meetings lobbied for a simultaneous takeover of the Soviet Embassy.

His interests in "traffic" and "transport" would indicate a rather pedestrian outlook, and more associated with bureaucracy than religious fervour. So where did his religious influences come from? Khomeini was hero-worshipped by many students, who did not go on to become religiously hardline political leaders, but who is the person who is Ahmadinejad's spiritual guide?

One person with a massive influence both spiritually and politically on the President is Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi. This man, according to a report from the Telegraph from 20 November, is known as "Professor Crocodile" by his students, on account of his harsh fundamentalism. He has said "If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth."

Mesbah-Yazdi, who is based in the Haqqani seminary at the holy city of Qom, north of Tehran, is firmly against America, and supports public floggings and hangings. When Ahmadinejad first stood as a candidate in this year's elections, he was virtually unknown outside of metropolitan Tehran. Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi issued a fatwa to support Ahmadinejad's bid for presidency, and this surely affected his profile, and the outcome of the election. According to Rooz Online, Ahmadinejad's sister personally went to Mesbah-Yazdi to thank him for his support.

Ahmadinejad's own supporters have copied the rhetoric associated with Mesbah-Yasbi. According to Global Security: "Ahmadinejad's supporters said he "will punch in the mouth" all those who advocate relations with the United States."

Mesbah-Yasbi is becoming a hugely influential figure, and the Iranian president is gaining his spiritual guidance from this man, whose website can be seen here.

In August two years ago, according to Iran Mania, Mesbah-Yazdi fiercely opposed an extremely mild concession to women's rights which were to be brought in only if they did not contradict the tenets of Islam. "Unfortunately, parliament has passed a bill that has at least 90 points against Islam," he grumbled.

It appears that Ahmadinejad has a worrying faith in Mesbah-Yasdi, and an unhealthy interest in supernatural issues. Reuters, via Iranian.ws stated on November 17th that in a speech to senior clerics, he had stated his belief in a prophecy. He said that there would be a second coming of Shi'ite Muslims' "hidden" 12th Imam.

According to Shi'ite Muslim teaching, Abul-Qassem Mohammad, the 12th leader whom Shi'ites consider descended from the Prophet Mohammed, disappeared in 941 but will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.

"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

"Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society."

The article suggests that his belief in the return of Abul-Qassem, who is also called the Mahdi is tied in with a secretive society which was founded in 1953, called the Hojjatieh Society, which was banned in the early 1980s. It was used by the Shah to persecute members of the Bahai faith.

The belief of the Hojjatieh Society is that the way to hasten the return of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam, is to create chaos in the world. The Haqqani madrassa, the spiritual fiefdom of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, was founded by the Hojjatieh.

If his spiritual guru believes that chaos is the way to bring on a messianic transcendence, then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is already adding to the sum total of the world's chaos, could be more dangerous than any other leader.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 14, 2005 4:09 PM

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