Abbas Amirifar, who heads the president’s cultural council, has been summoned by the Special Clerical Court and then jailed, the Fars news agency reported last Monday.
The Iranian Students News Agency later quoted Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi as saying Amirifar was arrested for his role in making and distributing the video, which has been widely distributed and much talked about in Iran. The establishment clergy has always frowned on efforts to forecast the return of the 12th Imam.
The video, “The Re-Appearance is Near,” was released about two months ago. Only one other person associated with it is reported to have been arrested—the director, Ali-Asghar Sirjani. The fact that someone close to Ahmadi-nejad has been arrested suggests the detention may have more to do with the fact that many in Iran believe it is now open season on the president and are moving in.
The 28-minute video argues that the crises upending the Middle East today are a sure sign that the 12th Imam of Shia Islam will soon return to earth and begin the end of time. Dolatabadi said 2 million DVDs of the video have been distributed.
Those distributing the video say it has approval from the highest authorities of the Islamic Republic, saying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi is backing the video. But the establishment clergy has long been strongly opposed to efforts to predict the second coming. So it is exceedingly unlikely that Khamenehi would approve of the video.
Ahmadi-nejad, on the other hand, often speaks of the second coming as imminent, much to irritation of many clerics.
The video, in Farsi with English subtitles, can be viewed at http://atimetobetray.com/blog/iran-leaders-the-coming-is-upon-us-–-israel-shall-be-destroyed-watch-the-video/
The video pairs clips of current events with quotations from the Qoran and Hadith to demonstrate that the conditions laid out in religious writings for the second coming are now being fulfilled and that 12th Imam will soon return and usher in the end of time.
In Shiite belief, when the world has dissolved in chaos, the Mahdi or 12th Imam will return with the Prophet Jesus at his side to bring a world of perfect justice before the end of time. The Shiite theology of the second coming of the Mahdi and the Christian theology of the second coming of Jesus are similar.
Advocates of the imminence of the “rapture,” as it is known in theology, have grown in numbers in the last two decades in Iran. Rapture advocates are small in number in the United States now, but were very common in the decades before the Civil War.
The video says Iran is destined to rise as a great power in the last days to help defeat America and Israel and usher in the return of the Mahdi.
“The Hadith have clearly described the events and the various transformations of countries in the Middle East and also that of Iran in the age of the coming,” says the narrator, who also asserts that America’s invasion of Iraq was foretold by Islamic scripture,
The ongoing upheavals in other Middle Eastern countries like Yemen and Egypt—including the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood—are analyzed as prophetic signs that the Mahdi’s return is near. So is the current poor health of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. “Isn’t the presence of Abdullah, his illness, and his uncertain condition great news for those anxious for the coming?” asks the narrator.
Iran’s Supreme Leader and Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, are hailed as pivotal end-times’ players, whose rise was predicted in scripture. The same goes for Ahmadi-nejad, whom the video says will conquer Jerusalem prior to the Mahdi’s coming.