6. Iran’s Supreme Leader Says He Represents Prophet Muhammad on Earth
While President Ahmadinejad may be feeling the presence of the 12th Imam, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly issued a fatwah demanding that he be obeyed as the earthly “deputy” of both the Prophet Muhammad and the 12th Imam. In fact, last July, this supreme leader said that he actually met with the 12th Imam.
Whether the Imam whispered something in Khamenei’s ear predicting the revolution in Egypt, Khamenei has not said. But, just like Ahmadinejad, Khamenei is delighted so long as his own people do not get any ideas about rebelling. He sees it as the next stage of the “Islamic awakening” that began with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
Here is an excerpt from Khamenei’s February 4, 2011 Friday sermon extolling the Islamic virtues of the Egyptian revolution, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute:
In the Islamic world today, a great and crucial event is developing, an event that could tip the balance of arrogance in this region in the favor of Islam and the peoples. This event can restore honor and glory to the Arab and Islamic peoples, and can wipe from their faces the dust of decades of oppression and humiliation inflicted upon these noble peoples by the West and America. But it would be a mistake to assume that this is the required outcome. A collaborating regime is not toppled when its visible leaders leave the country. If these leaders are replaced by others from behind the scenes, then nothing has changed. This is a trap set for the people. During the great Islamic Revolution in Iran, they tried time and again to make our people fall into such a trap. But the awareness of the people and of its great divine leader allowed them to thwart the enemies’ scheme and to continue along the path to the end. The awakening of the Muslim Egyptian people is an Islamic liberation movement. On behalf of the Iranian people and the revolutionary Iranian government, I salute the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples, asking Allah to grant them a complete victory. Your awakening makes me feel proud.
Next: If they’d do this to their own people, imagine what they’d do to us…
