Islamic messiah at center of Iranian policy Key leaders believe destruction of Israel will hasten coming of 'Mahdi'

By Jerome R. Corsi

Ahmadinejad's chief spiritual adviser is Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, known as "the Crocodile" for his rugged facial features and his hard-line orthodox religious views.

Yazdi is the chief living authority on the Mahdi, the "Guided One," better known as the Twelfth Imam or the Hidden Imam. The belief in Shiite Islam is that Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam in line of succession from the Prophet Muhammad, disappeared down a well in the 10th century A.D., going into "occultation," or hiding, until the appointed time to return.

Shiite Muslims believing in the Mahdi maintain the Mahdi is a messianic figure who will return after an apocalypse to elevate Shiite Islam to the status of the only true religion, with the consequence that all false religions, including Sunni Islam, will be vanquished.

A key distinction between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims is that Shiite Muslims believe the legitimate authority over Islam must be established from within Prophet Muhammad's direct family line, whereas Sunni Muslims accept secular leadership, such as the caliphates that ruled Islam during the Ottoman Empire.

Ayatollah Yazdi heads the Imam Khomeini Research and Learning Center in Qom, site of the Jamkaran well from which Shiite believers expect the Twelfth Imam will reappear. Yazdi has proclaimed that Ahmadinejad is the "chosen" of Imam Mahdi, the person designated to prepare the way for the Mahdi's second coming.

Yazdi is also a member of the Assembly of Experts, the select group of clerics responsible for electing the supreme leader from within their ranks. When Ayatollah Khomeni died in 1989, the Assembly of Experts, then chaired by Rafsanjani, elected Ayatollah Khamenei to be the second supreme leader. ....