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Ahmadi Nejad Quotes REM
Key to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline policies may not be hidden in his revolutionary past, or in any of the nuclear facilities dispersed across Iran, but in a small farming village near the holy city of Qom. Here, in what was until only a few years ago a shabby local mosque, Iran's new radical Muslim leader has become the chief sponsor of a messianic cult whose massed followers pray each week for the end of the world as we know it.Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. Ahmadinejad has given a reported $US20 million ($26 million) and personal supervision to turning the tiny Jamkaran mosque into a massive complex of prayer halls, minarets, car parks and ablutions. Once completed, it will cater in comfort to the tens of thousands of worshippers who flock here every Tuesday night, hoping for the reappearance of the Mahdi or "Hidden Imam".
...... It was dusk, and suitably apocalyptic. Storm clouds hung over the huge blue bulb of the half-finished shrine and lightning flickered as the wind began tossing the fir trees. Beneath the trees the first knots of people were already waiting for nightfall when the vigil would begin. Out on the road fleets of smoking buses beeped and shunted in the gloom, and a rising tide of people flooded through the gates, many having made the 15-kilometre pilgrimage on foot from Qom. Suddenly there were screams, and a large whirlwind whipped through the trees and the startled worshippers and right into the mouth of the newly built shelter which covers the well where pilgrims deposit their wishes to the Mahdi, scribbled on printed prayers. Farzaneh Hosseini said she had come to the shrine because she had heard that numerous miracles were performed there. "This is the place that the hidden Imam likes to be and because of him we are here," said the 27-year-old Afghan refugee from Kabul. "The plans for this mosque were drawn by the Imam and given to a man in a dream, so people have built it here and that is why we come. I believe the dream came to a man a long time ago. I don't know when." Posted by: mhw 2006-05-15 |
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