The Iranian connection to Bayt al-Moqaddas

Welcome to our Ramadhan Special on the Last Friday of this blessed month of fasting, marked in Iran and abroad as World Qods Day, which was designated as such by the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless his soul) in 1979, to mobilize the Ummah for the cherished goal of liberation of Islam’s former Qibla, Bayt al-Moqaddas from the occupation of the illegal Zionist entity.

The day has since generated a global tidal wave against Israel and its crimes against humanity. No we have a special feature in this regard as follows:

Imam Khomeini had said without mincing words: “Israel is a cancerous tumour that ought to be weeded out from the region.” He was not spewing hate against any country, as alleged by the Zionist-controlled western media. The Founder of the Islamic Republic was simply calling for justice on the international scale, in view of the fact that Israel is a spurious entity that was implanted in the Muslim land of Palestine by the British colonialists who illegally settled hundreds of thousands of European Jews of Khazar non-Israelite origin, and uprooted from their homes and hearths the sons of the soil, that is, the Palestinian people, both Muslims and Christians. The late Imam thus laid a solid base for setting in motion a liberation struggle, on the aspirations of the Palestinian people, that Insha Allah (God Willing) will one day lead to the liberation of Qods and wiping out from our midst any vestiges of the racist parasite called Israel. His sole intention was to rectify the wrongs of the past and to remove injustice from the region, in view of the tidings given to the justice-seeking Iranian people, about whom a famous statement had been expressed over a millennium and four centuries ago by Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny):

When my Sunnah (that is, practice) is tampered with and changed, its supporters will rise from the land called Khorasan. Anyone they confront will be defeated and (all) will yield all to them, until they finally approach Bayt al-Moqaddas."

This hadith of the Messenger of Mercy, serves as food for thought. It is important to note that this and similar prophecies, found in both Sunni and Shi'ite texts, make specific mention of the forces of Khorasan (read “Iranian”) sweeping all before them in the "end-times" on their way to Bayt al-Moqaddas – where on the sacred rock on which al-Aqsa Mosque stands the Prophet of Islam is said to have stopped during his historic Ascension or Me'raj to the highest point in the heavens and back to Mecca in a part of a single night.

In some Islamic prophecies, Bayt al-Moqaddas is called Iliya – a reference to Colonia Aelia Capitolina, the name given in 135 AD by its Roman occupiers, from whom the Muslims freed this city and Palestine it in 17 AH or 638 AD. Perhaps at the mention of these prophecies, those versed in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures might be visualizing Armageddon, a decisive battle that is supposed to take place between the powers of good and the powers of evil during the “end-times”, near what they call Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, Armageddon appears to be a corruption of nearby Meggido where several historical battles have been fought since the time of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Thutmose III in 1468 BC, to General Edmond Allenby of the British forces in 1917 during the First World War against the Ottomans. But, whatever the origins of Armageddon, for the Zionist occupiers of Bayt al-Moqaddas and their unjust supporters in the West, there is no reason to rejoice. They are mistaken if they think Armageddon would establish the rule of Zion over the world. No, definitely not, especially if one is willing to ponder deeply over the religious and historical facts, and how Iranians have contributed and will contribute, to the triumph of truth over falsehood.

Daniel (PuH) was a God-sent Prophet and whatever he predicted was for justice and peace – which means Islam in Arabic. He certainly did not give tidings to the Zionist terrorists or to any other racist cult to resort to the pretext of ill-defined nationalism in order to dent the universal brotherhood of mankind.

Like Prophet Daniel, who rests in peace in the southwestern Iranian city of Shush, Muslim scholars opine that Bayt al-Moqaddas will eventually return to the fold of Islam. They firmly believe that the city and the region will finally become an abode of peace with the reappearance of the Prophet of Islam’s 12^th and Last Successor, Imam Mahdi (PuH) – God hasten his setting up of the global government of justice. Prophet Jesus (PuH), whom the Zionists revile, will also reappear to serve as a lieutenant to Imam Mahdi (PuH), and this will make Christians turn in multitude towards Islam by freeing themselves from the yoke of the detested Zionists, who currently control the US, and Europe, as well as reactionary Arab regimes. It will be real peace and not Pax Americana, which the US is trying in vain to impose and which in the jargon of the Zionists and the West means the permanent thralldom of Palestinians. Insha Allah, the usurper state of Israel will eventually vanish from the map of the region as was the fate of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that was set up by European Crusaders in 1099 AD. This year on the 829^th anniversary of the liberation of Qods from the yoke of the Crusaders on 2^nd October 1187 by the Kurdish king, Salah od-Din Ayyoubi (Saladin to the West), it will be interesting to recall the role played by Iranians in those days. The Iranian historian, Emad od-Din Isfahani, who was official chronicler to Saladin, writes: “This joyful news spread far and wide, bringing perfume to Rayy (today a suburb of modern Tehran) and to the evening conversation at Samarqand. It was welcomed with enthusiasm and its sweetness surpassed candied fruits and sugar. The world of Islam was ready and adorned for a festival to celebrate the liberation of Bayt al-Moqaddas."

Time and space do not permit us to go into details of the 88-year occupation of Qods and Palestine by Crusaders of Europe and the similarities it bears to the current 68-year Zionist usurpation, including the then Europeanization of the Islamic city and the treason of the local Muslim rulers, who like certain Arab regimes of our own days, carried on commerce, pleasure and intrigue with the Crusader occupiers, to the extent that Qods was given up as a lost cause by the Muslims, while the usurpers – like the Zionists of today – thought that their rule was as good as permanent.

So pathetic had the affairs become that Abul-Muzaffar Abiverdi, an Iranian poet living in Abbasid Baghdad of the 12th century composed a stirring elegy in Arabic in order to awaken Islamic conscience. Part of his poem reads:

•   To shed tears is a man's worst weapon when swords stir up embers of war;
•   Sons of Islam behind you are battles in which heads roll at your feet.
•   Dare you slumber in the blessed shade of safety, where life is soft like orchid?
•   While your Syrian brothers can only sleep on the back of the chargers or in the vultures' bellies!
•   Must the foreigner feed on our ignominy, while you trail behind you the train of a pleasant life?
•   When sword points are red with blood and at the hammering of swords on lances the hairs of children turn white.
•   This is war and the infidel's sword is naked in his hand, ready to be sheathed again in man's necks and skulls.

Such literary eloquence which bears a striking resemblance to the current situation in Gaza and the rest of Palestine finally stirred Muslims into action, until the Arabs, the Kurds, the Turks, and the Persians, rallied under the banner of Saladin to liberate Qods and cleanse it of all vestiges of the 88-year rule of the Crusaders. The Egyptian fleet cut off all escape routes by sea for the Crusaders, as Khorasani sappers showed their great skills in mining the impregnable ramparts of the holy city.

Could the Islamic World emulate this epic? Definitely, if they knit their ranks; and this is what the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini, meant when he called on Iranians and world Muslims to get together remove the cancerous tumour called Israel. Hopefully, the World Qods Day and the millions-strong rallies to be staged in Tehran and other Iranian cities, as well as in other countries of the region, will convey the message to the free world to marshal its resources for the liberation of Bayt al-Moqaddas and the whole of Palestine, from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and from Lebanon in the north to Egypt in south. The Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has time and again called for a peaceful solution for the end of Israel by urging the UN to arrange a referendum involving all original inhabitants of Palestine, including Muslims, Christians, and the Jewish minority, but not the illegal Zionist occupiers, to determine a single state and a single government.

AS/ME