Twelver Shi'ism

But you start to see Islamic empires come, the Umayyads, the Abbasid Caliphate.

And then about the 12th, 13th century, you get the Mongols coming through and and challenging Twelver Shiism.

And what's interesting about that is that's where we get the term assassins, because the Mongols were the first group that could subdue the assassins coming out of the Shia environment.

But by 1501, about the same time as the Ottoman Empire is evolving up north in Turkey, and then spreading down into the southern part of of what was Western Arabia, I'm sorry, Western parts of the Middle East, you see the Safavid Empire.

leadership under Khomeini that took over.

And what happened? The moment that Khomeini took over, he established the IRGC, and they went into the streets, and they slaughtered the ranks of those who had fought with him, Khomeini, meaning today Fedayeen and the communists, and only the Islamic Shiite Twelver regime remains to this day.

Well, let's hope the people who voted the mayor in New York listen to you.

Perfect

Will appear someday.

That is the Twelver Shia principle.

The Houthi Shiaism, which is called Zaydi Shiaism, that's why Houthis are also called Zaydis, they, they believe that Zayd ibn Ali was the fifth imam in this list of 12.

That Zayd ibn Ali, for the Iranian Shias, Twelver Shias, is a very respected figure and a hero in history, but he's not an imam.

His brother, Muhammad al-Baqir was the imam instead.

So the Twelver Shias don't believe that Zayd ibn Ali was an imam, was the fifth imam, whereas the Zaydis of Yemen, that is the Houthis, Houthis believe that he was the fifth imam.

So even within, within the Shia practice, there is a clear distinction of the Shiaism that the Zaydis, that the Zaydis or the Houthis follow and the Shiaism from Iran.

That's why it'll be very simplistic to say that this is Shia versus Sunni.

Leading giant religious organizations? Arthritis? Scripture? Soccer? It could have been anything.

The point is, it was the first time that a pope met with a Grand Ayatollah of Shiism.

Afterward, Pope Francis went to speak near the ancient city of Ur, where our podcast began to emphasize the shared roots of the Abrahamic religions and to urge religious leaders in Iraq to work together.

These events did not result in immediate peace on earth, but the Pope's visit and the Grand Ayatollah's goodwill toward that visit were both a powerful gesture toward acknowledging a shared religious past that dates back deep into the Bronze Age.

The second of them, in 2019 in Abu Dhabi, resulted in the signing of a document decreeing the fraternity of all humans, regardless of creed.

At their third meeting in Bahrain in 2022, Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayyab were no longer strangers to one another, and they spoke on the familiar topics of unity and dialogue.

A modern pope, like a grand ayatollah in Shiism or a grand imam in Sunnism, with the credentials that these men share, know the truth about Abrahamic history.

They know what the roads of extremism look like and where they lead.

They don't follow the direct orders like Hezbollah, like through Walid al-Faqih, from the supreme leader, if the supreme leader is even alive.

And the Houthis are a different form of Shiism.

Having said that, they do cooperate and work with Iran.

I'm not sure how many ballistic missiles the Iranians want to give the Houthis other than to cause trouble, because I don't know exactly the ballistic missile capacity that Iran is at this point.

Hmm.

And in, in Twelver Shiism, there's this sense that, uh, we are waiting for more than 1,000 years for the Mahdi to, uh, reappear.

Uh, the Mahdi's been, Mahdi's been in hiding, and, uh, when he reappears, he will lead Jesus and lead armies against this horrible force of the Dajjal.

So there is a sort of mirror image of, of an evil character in history in that-

I thought we had done what we needed to do as far as taking out any nuclear proliferation.

But we continue to try to make deals with people that you know and everyone should know you can't make deals with Shia Islam because of their eschatology and wanting to usher in the Maudi and the Twelver and whatnot.

And so, I mean, I can't imagine that this is going according to plan.

If this is according to plan, it's pretty bad.