It's difficult to comprehend, but could a 5-year-old boy who went missing more than 11 centuries ago be the cause of the world's next nuclear conflict?

Adherents of Shia Islam believe that leadership of the Muslim religion was transferred from Muhammad to his son-in-law and then down through a series of descendants. Shiites refer to each of these successors as an "imam"—Arabic for "leader."

The 12th of these imams was born in 868 or 869. A few years later, in 874, he disappeared without a trace, bringing an end to Muhammad's lineage. The Shiites believe that this boy, the 12th imam, survived, "that he merely withdrew from public view when he was five and that he will sooner or later emerge . . . to liberate the world from evil" (Matthias Kuntzel, "A Child of the Revolution Takes Over: Ahmadinejad's Demons," The New Republic, April 24).

Some refer to him as the Mahdi, meaning "divinely guided one." In Shiite ideology—dominant in Iran and Iraq —"legitimate Islamic rule can only be established following the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam" (ibid.). As Christians wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ to establish the Kingdom of God over the earth, Shiite Muslims await the Mahdi's return to make Islam the dominant—and eventually only— religion throughout the world.

Shiite beliefs shape Iran

Because most people in the West do not take religion seriously, it's almost impossible for Westerners to understand the power of religion in the Middle East. In Islamic countries, politics and religion are inseparable.

The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the 12th imam for more than a thousand years, but that patience has run out, at least in Iran. In 1979 the overthrow of the pro-Western shah of Iran led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocratic state where the clerics held supreme power under the Ayatollah Khomeini.

"Khomeini . . . had no intention of waiting. He vested the myth with an entirely new sense: The Twelfth Imam will only emerge when the believers have vanquished evil. To speed up the Mahdi's return, Muslims had to shake off their torpor and fight" (ibid.).

Influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood of the 1930s, Khomeini "agreed with the Brothers' conception of what had to be considered 'evil': namely, all the achievements of modernity that replaced divine providence with individual self-determination, blind faith with doubt, and the stern morality of sharia [law] with sensual pleasures" (ibid.).

Khomeini believed that all that is bad in the world comes from the West, especially America, which he designated "the Great Satan."

"Twelvers," as this largest group of Shiite Muslims are sometimes called, believe Islam must triumph over the West before the 12th imam will appear. They feel it their duty to bring chaos to the world. Out of this chaos will come a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West that will then lead directly to the return of the 12th imam.

Thus the Tehran regime is clearly not about to enter into any agreement of substance with the West. Any treaty is only going to be used by the Iranian leadership to play for time, as President Ahmadinejad has openly boasted of doing in his drawn-out negotiations with the European Union.

As the New Republic writer Matthias Kuntzel asks, "Why should an Iranian president engage in pragmatic politics when his assumption is that, in three or four years, the savior will appear?" (ibid.).

Iranian threats to eliminate Israel

One of President Ahmadinejad's stated goals is the total destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. Yet this isn't new in Iranian thinking.

"In December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that 'the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything.' On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it 'will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.'

"Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable—only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam" (ibid.).

Israel is a small country that could be essentially wiped out with just one nuclear missile, whereas the Islamic world is spread across many countries on three continents. Even if Israel retaliated with its entire nuclear arsenal, it would merely harm the Islamic community of nations, not destroy them. This was the thinking of Iran's former "moderate" president.

The new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is even more radical. At a November 2005 theology conference he emphasized that "the most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam" (ibid.).

An ancient failed attempt to exterminate the Jews

This is not the first time that a powerful leader has tried to exterminate the Jews. Seventy years ago Adolf Hitler succeeded in exterminating 6 million Jews. If Iran succeeds in a nuclear strike against Israel, once again the world could see 6 million Jews wiped out!

This is not even the first time an Iranian leader has tried to wipe out the Jews. Almost 2,500 years ago many Jews lived in the ancient Persian Empire, whose modern successor state was renamed Iran after World War II. In the Old Testament book of Esther we read an account of an attempt to totally annihilate the Jews.

The story takes place in 484 B.C. during the reign of the Persian king Xerxes I, who was king from 486-465 B.C. The biblical name for Xerxes was Ahaseurus.

One of his predecessors, Cyrus the Great, had defeated Babylon, where the Jews had been taken as captives, in 539 B.C. Soon afterward he gave the Jews permission to return to Judah, which was within his empire. Many returned, but many did not. (In fact, as a result of the Babylonian captivity around 2,600 years ago, some Jews still live in Iran though many have left under the present fundamentalist Islamic regime.)

When Xerxes' wife, Queen Vashti, refused to honor him, he divorced her and later chose Esther, a Jewess, as her successor. Esther had been brought up by her uncle, Mordecai. According to the biblical account, the king appointed a man named Haman to the second-highest position in the land, what we today would call prime minister.

Esther 3:2 states that "all the king's servants who were within the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow down or pay homage." Haman realized that it wasn't just Mordecai who was a problem, but that all the Jews would do as he did (verse 6). So he devised a plot to wipe them out.

After things started to unravel, Haman's family warned him not to tackle the Jews: "When Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, 'If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him but will surely fall before him'" (Esther 6:13).

They might have been aware of God's promise to Abraham regarding him and his descendants: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you" (Genesis 12:3). Through Mordecai and Queen Esther, God delivered the Jewish people from genocide.

Haman failed to exterminate the Jews. Hitler, though he did kill vast numbers, also failed in his genocidal efforts. Similarly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's stated goal of wiping out the Jews of Israel will also fail. God will ultimately deliver the Jewish people from this as He has delivered them many times before.

In Matthew 24:22 we read the words of Jesus Christ, the real Messiah who is soon to return to this world: "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened."

Jesus Christ will intervene in world affairs to stop humanity from destroying itself in the kind of nuclear conflict that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is threatening. Not only is the Iranian president intent on destroying Israel, but he also wants to rid the world of America and Britain, the leading infidel countries, so Islam can triumph over all nations.

Islam on the rise, the West in decline

Amir Taheri, a former executive editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, who now lives in Europe, wrote in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper April 16: "In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic 'superpower' has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its aging populations."

He notes that young Shiite boys are taught to develop two qualities. "The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return."

Mr. Taheri goes on to explain that, in President Ahmadenijad's thinking, "the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to appear."

He had this to say about Iran's nuclear program: "Moments after Ahmadinejad announced 'the atomic miracle', the head of the Iranian nuclear project, Ghulamreza Aghazadeh, unveiled plans for manufacturing 54,000 centrifuges, to enrich enough uranium for hundreds of nuclear warheads. 'We are going into mass production,' he boasted.

"The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a 'lame-duck,' unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons . . ."

"While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian.

"Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defenses, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Tehran [in April], Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the 'Jerusalem Cause', which includes annihilating Israel 'in one storm', while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza."

Mr. Taheri also points out that Tehran has "reactivated Iran's network of Shia organizations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco."

Islamic fundamentalism in a variety of forms is spreading from country to country with no successful reverses. The latest country to come under the control of fundamentalists is Somalia, whose capital city, Mogadishu, fell to militants in early June.

Militant Islam is a powerful force that seems destined to grow greater and to bring increasing turmoil around the world. Among the adherents of Shia Islam the expectation of the Mahdi is feeding their zeal toward the fulfillment of apocalyptic events.

The Shiites expect a messiah. One will come, but not the one they think they are preparing for! GN