-- Amil Imani

The world is presently at its most wicked. It is beyond human help. It requires only a nudge to implode and prepare for the divine ruler, the Saheb-ul-Zaman (the Mahdi, the Lord of the Age) to come and set it aright. It is the sacred duty and privilege of every Muslim to do all he can to hasten the death of the old world and the birth of the global Islamic Ummah. Thus goes the thinking of Iran’s ruling mullahs and their hand-picked president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It seems like the old millennialism thinking, a belief held, in one version or another by major religions. Indeed it is, with one terribly alarming difference.

Islam is in shambles for a variety of reasons. A major problem with Islam is that there are as many different versions of Islam as there are Islamic pundits and there are legions of them. Another reason why Islam is in shambles is that it is all things to all people. Even a cursory study of the Qur’an, the immutable word of God, as Muslims see it; the Hadith, the authoritative sayings of the Prophet; and, the Sunna, the Prophet’s life conduct, present a body of contradictory and even outright erroneous information. This body of Islamic doctrine enables a person to pick and choose the parts he likes and ignore those he doesn’t like. This feature explains why some of the good as well as the most beastly people are Muslims.