Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch put out a great read on Iran and their continuing claim of the twelfth imam that will soon make its presence known. – Take the time to read the entire post.
The Twelfth Imam disappeared over 1100 years ago, and hasn’t been heard from in over 1,050 years. After his disappearance in 874, the Twelfth Imam communicated through three messengers. In his last communiqué to the world, via one of these messengers in the year 941, this mysterious figure consoled his followers with prophesies regarding his eventual reappearance. The circumstances of that reappearance could, in the hands of Iran’s mad mullahs, visit upon the world calamities of a scale never before seen. And Israel and America will bear the brunt.
“Hearts,” warned Mohammad al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, in his last message, “will become inaccessible to compassion. The earth will be filled with tyranny and violence.” He was speaking of the time of his reappearance, explaining that he would only come back to the world when the evil that Muslims were suffering was at its absolute apex. In this he echoed a Shi’ite tradition of the words of the prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad, who prophesied that the Twelfth Imam would be “the Resurrector” and explained: “He will fill the world with peace and justice as today it is filled with violence and tyranny.”
That violence and tyranny is not incidental to the theology of the Twelfth Imam, which has revenge as its core and essence. The dispute between the majority Sunnis and the Shiat Ali (Party of Ali) began upon the death of Muhammad in 632. The Sunnis contended that the prophet of Islam had made no provision for a successor as political, military, and spiritual leader of the Muslim community, and that therefore the Muslims should choose the best man among them as their leader. The nascent Party of Ali, on the contrary, claimed that Muhammad had designated his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor, and that the successor of Muhammad had to be a member of the prophet’s household.