by Bob Unruh
A prominent Iranian ayatollah says the Mahdi, the end-times Muslim savior, will come back in a spaceship with the sound “of thunder and its power and speed is that of lightning.”
Actually, his recent explanation wasn’t completely clear.
“It is like a spaceship and like other swift and amazing space vessels that are found [only] in stories today, but nobody knows how close [these vessels] come to truth and reality. Maybe it will be like [a spaceship] but in any case it is not a spaceship,” he said.
His description was discovered in an Iranian news report by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and analyzes media reports in the region.
The comments came from Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, who operates his own website to promote his views.
He was responding to a question about the “arrival of the Mahdi – the Hidden Imam who is the equivalent of the Messiah in Shiite Islam,” MEMRI reported.
“He explained at length how the Mahdi’s arrival will be high-tech, as befits the modern age,” MEMRI said.
His comments included:
“It was said by Imam Sadegh [the sixth Shiite imam, circa. 700–765 C.E.]: ‘When our Lord arrives, the land will be illuminated by divine light, and [God’s] creations will no longer require sunlight.’ The interpretation of this saying is that the issue of light and energy is expressed in that both in daytime and nighttime powerful lights can replace sunlight.”
“Today we use satellites [and by means of them] cover extensive areas, so that anyone with a receiver can use them… In the time of the Mahdi’s arrival, there will be a powerful apparatus, that may be difficult for us to imagine today, for transmitting images so that the entire world is visible like the palm of a hand. Without worldwide control by an intelligence [apparatus], there can be no unified global regime [as foretold that there will be when the Mahdi arrives], and no peace, security, and decency… Therefore, God grants him this tool… Once again I stress that this is a routine matter, and that it is inconceivable that it will come about based on a miracle; rather [it will come about] by means of ordinary tools that are based on scientific and industrial advances.”
