The Twelfth Imam

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “No, I haven’t,” David admitted. None of this was clearing up his questions. He wondered how much more of this, no matter how interesting it was, he would need to listen to before he got the information he’d come for.

  The old man leaned back in his chair, tilted his head against the faded cushion, and smiled. A look of restful delight crossed his face. He pressed his hands together at his chest and recited in a steady, melodic voice, “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’

  “In all my life, I had never read more powerful words. I knew they were not the words of men. They were the words of God. And then we began to study Jesus’ warnings.”

  “Warnings?” David asked.

  “Throughout the New Testament, Jesus warned again and again of false teachers and false messiahs who would come to deceive the world after His death and resurrection. ‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves,’ Jesus warned His disciples in Matthew chapter 7. ‘You will know them by their fruits,’ He said. ‘Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.’

  “I thought long and hard about such verses and many others like them. And I thought about the fruit of Muhammad’s life, about the violence. Muhammad lived by the sword and taught others to, while Jesus taught the exact opposite.”

  Birjandi then asked David to go to the bookshelf to his left and pull out the first and second books on the right-hand side of the top shelf; behind them he would find a copy of the Injil—the New Testament—in Farsi. David did as he was told and found it immediately.

  “Turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 24,” Birjandi said. “Matthew is the first book in the Injil, so it won’t be difficult to find.”

  David did so.

  “Okay, let’s begin in verse 3,” Birjandi said, beginning to recite the Scriptures aloud from memory as David followed along silently in the text. “‘As He’—Jesus—‘was sitting on the Mount of Olives’—that’s near Jerusalem—‘the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”’ You see, Jesus’ disciples wanted to understand when their Lord was coming back to earth to set up His kingdom and reign upon the earth. They wanted one sign, just one, that would indicate when His return was close at hand. But Jesus didn’t give them just one sign. He gave them many. Earthquakes. Famines. Natural disasters. Wars. Rumors of wars. Apostasy. Persecution of the believers. The spread of the Christian gospel message all over the world. All that will happen in the last days, Jesus warned, just before He returns.”

  “That’s all happening right now,” David said.

  “That’s true,” Birjandi said. “But look at the first sign Jesus warned His disciples about, beginning in verse 4. ‘And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will mislead many.”’”

  David read the verse for himself. Birjandi was right.

  “Now look at verse 11,” Birjandi said. “What does it say?”

  “‘Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many,’” David read, curious at why Jesus was repeating Himself.

  “Did Jesus say false messiahs and false prophets might arise in the last days?” Birjandi asked.

  “No,” David said. “He said they will arise.”

  “Did He say they might mislead many?” Birjandi pressed.

  “No, He said they will mislead many.”

  “Okay, now read verses 23 through 27.”

  David turned the page and continued reading. “‘Then if anyone says to you, “Behold, here is the Messiah,” or “There He is,” do not believe him. For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go out, or, “Behold, He is in the inner rooms,” do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.’

  “That’s the third time in the same chapter that Jesus is warning about false prophets and false messiahs,” David observed.

  “That’s right,” Birjandi said. “And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my life’s work was built on lies.”

  78

  “So let me get this straight,” David said. “You’re not a Muslim anymore?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I am a follower of Jesus.”

  “You don’t believe that Muhammad is a prophet?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t believe the Twelfth Imam is the messiah?”

  “No.”

  “How long ago did this happen?” David asked, dumbfounded.

  “About eighteen months ago.”

  “Did you tell your wife?”

  “I was going to,” Birjandi said.

  “What happened?”

  “When we learned she had cancer, I started praying for her eyes to be opened to the truth about Jesus. I didn’t pray five times a day for her. I prayed twenty-five times a day for her. And one day, as she slept, she dreamed of Jesus. He said, ‘Souri, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.’ And in her dream, Souri said to Him, ‘Lord, I don’t know where You are going, so how can I know the way?’ And Jesus said to her, ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’

  “Then she woke up, and right there and then, Souri realized that what she had been taught all her life, even by me, was wrong. She wasn’t angry with Islam. She wasn’t angry with me. She just knew in that moment that Jesus was the One True God, and she renounced Islam and became a follower of Jesus.”

  “How did you find out?” David asked.

  “She told me right away,” Birjandi said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “She wasn’t scared?”

  “She was scared,” Birjandi said. “But she told me that she loved me too much not to tell me the truth.”

  “You must have been very happy,” David said.

  “Actually,” Birjandi said, “I felt ashamed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because up to that moment, I had been too much of a coward to tell my own beloved wife that Jesus had saved me. When she told me her story, I broke down and cried, asking her to forgive me for not saying anything sooner. I could have lost her. She could have died and gone to hell, and it would have been my fault for not telling her the good news of Christ’s love. But you know what?”

  “What?” David asked.

  “Souri forgave me immediately,” Birjandi said. “It has taken me a long time to forgive myself, but my Souri forgave me immediately. That’s the kind of woman she was.”

  There was another long pause while David tried to absorb all of this and make sense of it. “So to be clear, you don’t believe the Twelfth Imam is real?” he finally asked.

  “Oh no; he’s real, all right. He’s just not from God. He’s from Satan.”

  “But you believe he exists?” David asked.

  “Of course,” Birjandi said. “He’s here now
. He was right here in Hamadan. Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “I’ve heard the rumors, but I—”

  “They’re not rumors, son. He’s really here, and he’s doing miracles to attract attention and a following. But as Jesus said—and you read it yourself just now—they are signs and wonders designed to deceive people, not to save people. Which brings us to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” Birjandi said. “You see, a week ago, the Lord told me you would be coming to see me.”

  “A week ago?”

  “Yes. He told me all about you, and he instructed me to tell you things I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Things about Iran’s nuclear weapons.”

  David could hardly breathe. He had come to Birjandi expecting to be taught about Shia eschatology and the Twelfth Imam. Instead he had gotten a crazy story about Jesus. And now the old man was about to tell him about Iran’s nuclear program? None of it seemed possible. Yet Birjandi continued to speak.

  “Hosseini and Darazi built nine nuclear warheads. One was just tested. That’s what caused the earthquake. There are eight left. And they are large bombs. Each one of them could destroy Tel Aviv, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, London, you name it. But Iran doesn’t yet know how to attach them to a long-range delivery system, so they cannot fire ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads on them. Not yet. When they use them, they will have to transport them by ship or truck and detonate them on site or by remote control.”

  David was trembling. In his head, he was still a skeptic. But in his heart, he believed it all. “How do you know this?”

  “Hosseini told me last week at our monthly lunch together.”

  “Why would Hosseini tell you all this?”

  “I am his closest personal advisor, an old and trusted friend. He’s excited because he believes what I always taught him. That once we had the ability to wipe out the Jews and Christians, then the Mahdi would come. But he also asked me to pray that Allah would give him wisdom to know how best to proceed. He had not confided this to me before last week, guarding his secrets carefully, as usual.”

  “Do you know where these warheads are?” David asked.

  “They were all in Hamadan last week, but now they have been dispersed around the country,” Birjandi said. “The last chance to take them all out at once would have been to hit Saddaji’s research center in Hamadan. But no one did. The Israelis took out Saddaji, but that was the wrong move. They needed to hit the research center. Now it’s too late.”

  “Do you have proof of all this?” David asked.

  “I’m not sure it matters,” Birjandi said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we are in the last days,” the old man said with a sigh. “The arrival of the Twelfth Imam means that an apocalyptic war between Iran, the U.S., and Israel is imminent. I honestly don’t know why God has brought you here, but His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”

  “I want this nuclear program stopped,” David answered. “These men are madmen, and I believe they are hell-bent on killing millions.”

  “I don’t know if it can be stopped,” Birjandi said. “You certainly can’t stop all of the wars and devastation and death. They are foretold. The same is true of the rise of false messiahs and false prophets and false teachers. It is written they will come. Now they are here. Such things are determined by God, and nothing can thwart or change His will.”

  “But does the Bible say these deceivers win?” David pressed. Clearly Birjandi chose the Bible for his motivation, just as Hosseini and Iran’s leaders chose the Qur’an. He would have to appeal to this internal compass of the old man, no matter how crazy it seemed.

  “No,” Birjandi said. “They do great damage, but ultimately they don’t win.”

  “Then maybe God will use mere mortals like you and me to stop them,” David said.

  “I don’t know that. But I hope so.”

  David wasn’t sure what to think about Birjandi’s story of converting to Christianity. Maybe the man was crazy. He clearly hadn’t told this story to the leaders of this country during their monthly meetings. If they were sharing state secrets with him, they must believe he was still loyal to Islam. Birjandi was wise to keep his experiences to himself and try to live out the last few of his years in peace.

  David didn’t think the man was trying to trick him. Maybe Birjandi would be a key, game-changing source for him, but he’d have to tread carefully. “I need to verify the things you’ve told me. Is there a trail I can follow, a person who might also want this nuclear program stopped, maybe someone on the inside?”

  Birjandi paused. “Before you worry about the world, son, you should be sure your own soul is secure in God. He knit you together in your mother’s womb. He loves you. But you must choose without delay. The forces of evil are gathering, rising, and believe me, David, you will never be able to stand against the tempest unless you have been forgiven, washed by the blood of Christ, filled with His Holy Spirit, and suited up in His full and mighty armor.”

  That wasn’t what David wanted to hear. “I appreciate that very much, Dr. Birjandi,” he replied. “But I’m not worried about myself.”

  “You should be.”

  “What about the souls of the innocent? What about the millions of people who will die if the Twelfth Imam orders Iran to detonate nuclear weapons in my country or in Israel?”

  “You need to think of yourself first.”

  “That’s selfish.”

  “No, that’s wisdom,” Birjandi said. “You don’t know what you’re going up against. Satan is not to be taken lightly. That’s who is giving power to the Twelfth Imam—Lucifer himself. You can’t possibly thwart him on your own.”

  “I’m not on my own,” David said. “I am an agent of the United States of America. We are the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the planet—in the history of mankind. If anyone can stop the Twelfth Imam—if there is anyone who can stop Iran—it’s the United States. We have this country surrounded. We’ve got forces in Iraq and the Gulf states. We’re in Afghanistan. We’re in Turkey. We’ve got submarines and aircraft carriers parked off your coastlines. We’ve got Predator drones and spy satellites hovering overhead. But we need proof. We need specific targets. And we need them now.”

  Several minutes went by. Birjandi said nothing. David looked at his watch.

  “Najjar Malik,” Birjandi finally said.

  “Who is that?”

  “He lives in Hamadan. He’s the son-in-law of Saddaji and the next in line to lead the nuclear program. I’m told that he and his young family have disappeared since Saddaji’s murder and that there are many people looking for him.”

  “Would he talk to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “I don’t know that either. But let me be clear, David—you’d better find him before the Mahdi does.”

  79

  En Route to Tehran, Iran

  Every Muslim was commanded to make hajj.

  As David had thoroughly studied during his college years in Munich, hajj was the fifth of the five pillars to which every follower of Islam must submit.

  The first pillar was saying the shahada, the basic profession of faith in Allah and Muhammad as his prophet. The second was performing salat, praying five times a day at the prescribed times. The third was zakat, the giving of alms to the poor. The fourth was sawm, fasting from food, drink, and sexual relations during the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan and at other times in the Islamic calendar. But it was the hajj that was the most difficult and thus the most honored act of the five.

  David had never done it, but every year, despite enormous poverty and deprivation throughout the Islamic world, more than 1.5 million foreign Muslims joined roughly an equal number of Saudi Muslims to make their pilgrimage to the city of Mecca. Considered a holy city, Mecca was the epicenter of Islam, the city where Muhammad was born in AD 570
, the city where he claimed he first began receiving revelations from Allah, a city whose people tried to resist and crush Islam in its infancy after Muhammad moved his base camp to nearby Medina, and the city that was ultimately conquered by Muhammad and his army of ten thousand mujahideen in AD 630.

  After the conquest, Muhammad declared that no infidel could ever enter Mecca, but every year Muslims entered in wave after wave, fully doubling the normal population of the city that once had little, if any, historical significance. Some came by train. Some came by bus or automobile. Others trekked across the desert. When the hotels filled up, they camped out in the thousands upon thousands of white tents erected by the Saudi government. When the tents filled up, they slept on floors or out under the stars. Most saved their entire lives for one opportunity to pray at the Kaaba, the black, granite, cube-shaped building that stood in the heart of Al-Masjid Al-Haram, the Sacred Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque.

  But every Muslim knew the hajj took place in the fall. This was late February, and no one had ever seen anything like this.

  The Islamic world had been electrified by the announcement that the Twelfth Imam had returned and would soon appear publicly. With rumors spreading of the great signs and wonders he was doing, Muslims were converging on Mecca in a way that threatened to overwhelm all of the normal systems.

  It was still the middle of the night, but David decided to use his rental car and drive rather than fly from Hamadan back to Tehran. Rather than get cut off from the flow of news and information in airports and on a plane, he wanted to be able to listen to the continuing coverage from Mecca on the radio. He also wanted to be able to transport the Farsi Bible that Dr. Birjandi had given him without some security guard at the airport finding it in his luggage and making a big deal of it.