Rocky Mountain Baha’i

“‘Divine Mission’ Driving Iran’s New Leader” by Anton La Guardia – Jan. 14, 2006

As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is “What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?”

Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.

But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an “odd man” - and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.

In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.

When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: “What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow.”

The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad’s piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president’s belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.

One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad’s government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.

All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a “contract” pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.

Iran’s dominant “Twelver” sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.

He is said to have gone into “occlusion” in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.

Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.

The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?

The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June’s presidential elections.

The main rift is no longer between “reformists” and “hardliners”, but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad’s brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.

Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad’s international debut, his speech to the United Nations.

World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.

Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote “state terrorism”, impose “the logic of the dark ages” and divide the world into “light and dark countries”.

The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to “hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace”.

In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.

“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.”

Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that “they couldn’t believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad”.

Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran’s president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.

(Above article is from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wiran14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/14/ixworld.html)

 

54 BAHA’IS ARRESTED IN IRAN

NEW YORK, 24 May 2006 (BWNS) — Iranian officials have arrested 54
Baha’is in the city of Shiraz, the Baha’i International Community has
learned.  They are mostly youth and were all engaged in humanitarian service
when they were arrested.  It is one of the largest number of Baha’is
taken at once since the 1980s. The specific charges are not clear, though
in the past, Baha’is have been arrested summarily on false charges.

The arrests occurred on Friday, 19 May, while the Baha’is, along with
several other volunteers who were not Baha’is, were teaching classes to
underprivileged children in a school as part of a UNICEF community
service activity conducted by a local non-governmental organization. At the
time of the arrests, they had in their possession a letter of
permission from the Islamic Council of Shiraz. They also carried the letter of
permission in each of their classes. 

The nature of the charges against the Baha’is is unknown at this time.
The day following the arrests, a judge told family members that the
detainees would be freed soon. As of today, it appears that all of the
non-Baha’is and one Baha’i junior youth have been released without having
to post bail.

The arrests coincided with raids on six Baha’i homes during which
notebooks, computers, books, and other documents were confiscated. In the
last 14 months, 72 Baha’is across Iran have been arrested and held for up
to several weeks.

“These new arrests in Shiraz, coming after more than a year of
‘revolving door’ detentions, bring the total number of Baha’is who have been
arrested without cause to more than 125 since the beginning of 2005,”
said Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha’i International
Community to the United Nations.

“Taken all together, this pattern of arbitrary arrests and detentions
amount to the purest form of religious persecution and reflect nothing
less than a calculated effort by the Iranian government to keep the
Baha’i community utterly off balance and in a state of terror,”
Ms. Dugal said.

The arrests come against a backdrop of increasing concern by
international human rights monitors that the Iranian Government is escalating its
25-year-long campaign of persecution against the 300,000-member Baha’i
community of Iran, the largest religious minority in that country.

In March, the UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights
on freedom of religion or belief released news of a secret 29 October
2005 letter from the Iranian military high command ordering police and
Revolutionary Guard units to “identify” and “monitor” members of the
Baha’i community of Iran, saying the existence of such a letter made her
“highly concerned.”

Moreover, since late 2005, more than 30 mostly negative and often
defamatory articles about the Baha’is and their religion have appeared in
“Kayhan,” the official Tehran daily newspaper. Radio and television
broadcasts have likewise increasingly condemned the Baha’is and their
beliefs.

Since January, in addition to the 54 arrested in Shiraz last Friday,
seven Baha’is have been arrested and held for periods of up to one month
in Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Tehran.

Among those arrested in January was Mrs. Roya Habibi of Kermanshah, who
has reported that she was interrogated for eight hours, with questions
focused on her role as coordinator of a program to provide religious
instruction in the Baha’i Faith.

In the court document that sets out the charges against her, Mrs.
Habibi, who is currently out on bail, “is charged with teaching the Bahaism
sect and acting in an insulting manner towards all that is holy in
Islam.”

“While it is often difficult to get details on the charges against
Baha’is, there is no doubt that most of them — like the case against Mrs.
Habibi — are motivated purely by religious intolerance and prejudice,”
said Ms. Dugal.

Last year, some 65 Baha’is were arrested and held for periods of time
ranging from a few days to more than a month.

While most were held less than a week, others were jailed for up to
three months. Some of the prisoners last year were held incommunicado, in
unknown locations, while their families desperately searched for them.
Last year also, government agents conducted prolonged searches of many
of their homes, confiscating documents, books, computers, copiers and
other belongings.

In the 1980s, some 200 Baha’is were killed or executed. Thousands were
arrested and hundreds were imprisoned, many for long periods. In recent
years, in the face of international monitoring, the executions and
long-term imprisonments have stopped.

For more information go to: http://www.bahai.org/persecution/iran

UPDATE ON ARRESTS IN IRAN

NEW YORK, 26 May 2006 (BWNS) — After their arrests on 19 May in
Shiraz, Iran, three Baha’is remain in jail while 51 others have been released
on bail.  No indication has been given as to when the three will be
released.  None of those who had been released, nor the three who are
still being detained, have been formally charged. 

On the day of the arrests, one Baha’i, under the age of 15, was
released without having to post bail.  At that same time, several other young
people who are not Baha?is and who had been arrested with the Baha’is,
were also released without bail. 

On Wednesday 24 May, five days after their summary arrests, 14 of the
Baha’is were released, each having been required to provide deeds of
property to the value of ten million tumans (approximately US$11,000) as
collateral for release.  The following day, Thursday 25 May, 36 Baha’is
were released on the strength of either personal guarantees or the
deposit of work licenses with the court as surety that they will appear
when summoned to court.

For more information on the situation of the Baha’is in Iran , please
go here: http://www.bahai.org/persecution/iran 

Comments: 

The Mahdi is promised in the Koran. The date for the coming of the Mahdi is also given by Daniel in the Old Testament of the Bible. The Mahdi is a forerunner prophet to the coming of the Return of Christ, which is also a Prophet. A lot of people think the Return of Christ will be come out of the sky. The Bible says “…he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7).Have you ever thought that it might mean every eye that can see?

“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace…. Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, down to this very day.’” (Rom. 11:5, 7-8)

People further back up the claim that Jesus will come out of the sky with this: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

Following is the way Jesus went into heaven: “By oppression and judgment he was taken away…. And they made his grave with the wicked.” (Isiaiah 53:8-9)

The clouds the Jesus returns on are the clouds created by the corruption that crept into Christianity (See “Debunking the Christian Mythologies,” and “Proofs for Jesus,” which are articles on this site).

People think the Return of Christ’s coming will be pretty spectacular, and none of us are going to miss it; and therefore it certainly has NOT happened yet.

But how many people today are open-minded? The world is so corrupt, much of mankind has given up on searching for God through religion. So how many true seekers are there really, in this world?

The second coming of Christ is NOT going to come streaking out of the sky. He is a prophesied Prophet, and His coming is preceeded by the coming of a forerunner Prophet who will be a direct descendant of Muhammad. In Islam, the prophet is referred to as the Mahdi.

The other title of the Mahdi in Islam is “the Hidden Imam.” What is this referring to? One must go all the way back in history to understand the concept of a Hidden Imam.

First of all, Islam is the civilization that originated with the coming of Muhammad. Muhammad was a direct lineal descendant of Abraham through Abraham’s son Ishmael. Ishmael’s mother was an Arabian woman named Hagar, who had been captured by the Egyptians and taken into slavery. When Abraham and Sarah garnered favor with the Pharoah of Egypt, he gave to them a slave woman named Hagar.

God told Abraham that many nations of God’s chosen people would come from his descendants. Sarah believed she was barren, and granted permission for Abraham to bear a child with her slave woman named Hagar.

Abraham’s first-born son was Ishmael. Sarah adopted Ishmael. When Ishmael was 13 years old, God granted Sarah, at the age of 90 years old, a son of her own. This was Isaac.

Though he was not the first-born son and therefore did not have the first rights of inheritance, nevertheless God had determined that Isaac should receive the great blessings that had been bestowed upon his father Abraham, rather than Ishmael.

Immediately upon knowledge of the child through Sarah, it was determined that Hagar and Ishmael should return to Hagar’s homeland, Arabia, so there was no question as to who would receive the sacred inheritance from Abraham. Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael set out for Arabia soon thereafter. On their way, Abraham prayed to God, asking that Ishmael also receive a blessing.

God then blessed Ishmael, saying a great nation and 12 princes will come from his descendants. (It’s in the Bible. Look it up!)

Wow! So Muhammad is the prophet that brought this great nation, and the 12 Imams were these 12 princes. Muhammad is a direct descendant of Abraham through Ishmael, and although his descendants did not receive the Most Great blessings, nevertheless a great blessing was fulfilled through Islam. At one time Islam furthered the world’s knowledge and learning, and was once the foremost empire in the world. This is because truly, the Holy Spirit was manifest in Muhammad, just as it had been manifest in other Holy Prophets throughout time, such as Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Krisna, Adam, and so on.

So every time a new prophet appears, the world’s knowledge and learning increase many times over through the influence of this prophet’s teachings. Muhammad’s teachings were no different. The Arabic number system we use today, as well as Arithmatic, Astronomy, Anatomy, and a lot of other sciences originated in Islam due to Muhammad’s teachings.

The twelve Imams are these twelve princes promised to Abraham and Ishmael. The story goes like this.

As soon as his followers became aware that Muhammad would die soon, they called his secretary to record his last wishes that his successor should be Ali, his nephew and son-in-law. He died before the secretary arrived.

Whereas some were clear on what Muhammad’s last wishes were, others wree not. Since they weren’t written down, some disputed the idea of Ali being Muhammad’s successor. They could not go with the idea that this young man named Ali should be Muhammad’s successor when this went completely against tradition. Tradition states that the elders are the ones that are to be respected as leaders. Such nonsense, they thought, to allow such a young man as Ali to succeed Muhammad.

So two of Muhammad’s most devout and most respected elder believers addressed a crowd that gathered directly after the news of Muhammad’s death was broadcast. They bemoaned the plight of the people, “What should we do? What shall we do?”

Then one elder announced to the other: “We shall elect a successor! I nominate you!”

With one accord the crowd agreed that this was to be the situation, and they simultaneously and unanimously elected one of these elder believers to be Muhammad’s successor. First one was elected, and the next election, the other one was elected.

Before Muhammad was even laid to rest in his grave, there were already two differing sects of Islam: the Sunnies and the Shiites. The Shiites believed Ali was the appointed successor to Muhammad, called an Imam, and that he was one of these princes referred to in the Bible who would come from Ishmael. And the others, those who helped elect these elders as leaders, refused to recognize Ali, and instead went with their elected successor. Those who followed the Imams were called Shiites, and those who followed the elected successors were called Sunnis.

The elected successors were called Caliphs. Islam has been ruled by the Sunni sect of Islam from the beginning. Whereas the pure-hearted believers believed in the Imams and the teachings of the Imams, called the Hadiths. So they formed another sect called the Shiites. The Hadiths had a lot of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Mahdi and the Messiah. So the Shiites believe in the Hadiths and the Sunnis do not recognize either the Imams or the Hadiths.

So the Koran alone was adhered to by the Caliphs their followers, the Sunnis, whereas the Shiittes believed in both the Koran and the Hadiths. The Sunnis didn’t really go by what the Koran said, however, because while Muhammad allowed defensive warfare, He forbade offensive warfare, and all the Caliphs ever did was go out and conquer, i.e., offensive warfare.

So all along under the rule of the Caliphs, the Imams were intermittently preyed upon, to the point where many of them were murdered. The apponted successorship went from one Imam to the next quite quickly. Finally, they were on their twelfth one, and it was a young child that had been appointed to be the next Imam. When the previous Imam was murdered, the mother of the child fled with the child in fear for their lives. She promised they would return. They never did.

The Mahdi, or forerunner Prophet to the Return of Christ, is called the Hidden Imam, because it was foretold that Islam would be for “1000 years without guidance,” and at that point, the twelfth or “Hidden” Imam would return. This Mahdi would be the forerunner to the coming of the Messiah.

Exactly 1000 years after this twelfth Imam disappeared, the Bab appeared and fulfilled all the prophecies for the coming of the Mahdi, or the Return of the twelfth Imam. To investigate the beautiful stories of the mircles that took place at the time of the Bab, refer to “Nabil’s Narrative” as well as other Baha’i books.

But back to the subject of Iran’s President today. Unfortunately, the history of the coming of the Mahdi and the Messiah casts a very unfavorable light upon Iran, Iraq and Turkey, because indeed, the Mahdi AND the Messiah (the Bab and Baha’u'llah) appeared in those countries and not only were they persecuted and imprisoned or slain, fully 30,000 of their followers were tortured and put to death by the people in these countries.

Why? Simply, when the Mahdi came, he said Islam was completely corrupt, and it all must be thrown out. He said the only things remaining were fastng and prayer, and other than that, there was not even a trace of the true teachings of Muhammad among them.

Well, this incensed the Mullahs so thoroughly, they drove both the people and the governing officials to commit the torture and martyrdom of 30,000 Babis and Baha’is.

Today, the Baha’is in Iran are still persecuted, and lately their rights have been slipping. They are no longer allowed to attend universities, own a business, and so on.

But Iran’s President, who is enthusiastically supported by perhaps 10 percent of Iran’s population, is a fervent believer that the Mahdi is about to appear. He is using his belief to bandstand his gutsy agenda regarding what he perceives be the oppression of other nations.

But my point is, he’s obviously missed the fact that the Mahdi has already appeared in his own region, and not only did he miss it, he obviously condones the continued oppression of anyone who didn’t miss it!

According to the Bible, there will be four winds of destruction that are released from the River Euphrates. This is a conflict between East and West that will result in “one hour” when “a third of mankind will be burned up” (Rev. 9:15), which is going to be a one-hour nuclear war. This one-hour nuclear war was foretold by John in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation goes into a scenario where corrupt Islam, represented by the dragon (and later by the horns of the dragon on the beast), takes power and authority for one hour over the beast (Rev. 17:12). The beast is the Western nations as represented by the United Nations. See Abdu’l-Baha’s explanations of the chapters 11 and 12 of Revelation, which are articles on this site.

So the war will be between East and West. The former powers of Islam, now represented by the horns of the dragon will take power and authority over the beast [corrupt Western powers] and in one hour, and 1/3 of mankind will be burned up (Rev. 9:15).

I only get into this to clarify the facts of what is going on in the world today. We are headed headlong into a nuclear war, which will be pushed along by the religious beliefs of the President of Iran, which ignores the fact that the Mahdi has already returned.

Unfortunately for the West, they don’t acknowledge that Christ has already returned as well, so, John foresaw that these Western leaders will stand far off, and weep, and gnash their teeth at the smoke of the burning of their cities, and the destruction of their wealth and power (Rev. 18:9-19). They will be utterly lost at the destruction of their empires. Daniel says everyone will awake: some, to everlasting life; others, to everlasting contempt (Dan. 5:2).

What to do? Prepare for catastrophe both physically and spiritually. Isaiah says those who fear the Lord will hide in the rocks from before the terror of the Lord (Isaiah 2:10). The Rocky Mountains are the safest place in the United States. One must be at LEAST 100 miles from a major city.

Why? I’m telling you why. Christ has already returned in Baha’u’llah. The laws, ordinances and every teaching and rule and instruction mankind could ever possibly need to establish the “Kingdom of God on earth” has been revealed by Baha’u’llah, explained by Abdu’l-Baha, and broken down into detail by Shoghi Effendi. Look into it. You will be utterly amazed. It is a blueprint for an entire Universal civilization wherein God will be our God, and we will be His people. And because the world is pretty much completely uninterested in this plan, there will be a great fire of purification that will be needed before this plan will be implemented.

But how do the Rocky Mountains fit in? Move to the mountains! It says in Matthew 24, to flee to the mountains (Matt. 24:15-16 — For more explanations of these verses see other documents on this site, including “Moses’ Covenant” and “The Remainder of the Old Testament”).

According to Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, people would be safe in the Rocky Mountains, which is why the Mormons moved to Salt Lake City early on. The coming war and earth changes will require that you be away from major cities, away from the oceans, and preferably in the mountains. If in the United States, this would be in the Rocky Mountains. Truly, one must take measures to be equipped to sustain the birth pains of the coming of this more spiritual civilization. Baha’u’llah says: “The day is approaching when We will have rolled up the world and all that is therein, and spread out a new order in its stead.  He, verily, is powerful over all things” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 313)

“The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day.  Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 118-119)

We must be both physically prepared by being in the right place, and by having fallout shelters, and we must be spiritually prepared by becoming grounded in Baha’u’llah’s teachings and firm in His Covenant.

Matthew says “those days will be shortened,” because otherwise no man would be left: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” (Matt. 24:21-22)

The elect are those who “elect” or choose to use their intellects to peruse and recognize the truth of what God is doing on the planet to purify mankind and establish His Kingdom of God on earth.