Friday, September 15, 2006
The Occulted Iman in Iran
Iranians have celebrated the Twelfth Imam's birthday for centuries, but it was only after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that the holiday was celebrated by draping Tehran in tinsel and colored lights, much like a Western city during Christmas. The government honors the Mahdi's birthday with more fanfare than it treats other arguably more prominent Muslim holidays. This year, out on a short trip for groceries, I ate Mahdi birthday cookies on one street, and was offered a cold fruit drink at a nearby square. The result of this government-nurtured devotion to the Mahdi has transformed the piety of millions of Iranians to frenzied worship bordered on superstition.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad adores the Twelfth Imam, and has dedicated much of his public speeches to pleading for his return, and expounding on the importance of preparing for it. He invokes the Mahdi so frequently, is so suggestive of his own divine guidance, that the ordinary, devout Iranian could be easily made to think the two enjoy a special connection. These religious tendencies irritate many clerics in Iran's theological center, Qom, and serious religious scholars, who feel the president is using the Mahdi mythology to expand his own power, and in the process conflating the Mahdi's attributes with those of God.
But as abstract as it may sound, Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic need the Twelfth Imam. Iran's system of absolute rule by the clergy is vested in the Mahdi's disappearance, for in his absence the ayatullahs function as his deputies on earth. The legitimacy of the Islamic system and the credibility of the establishment clergy are founded on the Twelfth Imam. Which is why the President mentions him at every opportunity, why the Jamkaran pilgrimage site is becoming a small city. And of course, why his birthday is celebrated with unparalleled passion, at high volume.
