The narrations of the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) prophesy of a Muslim force from the East ("al-Mashriq"), possibly from the land of "Khorasan" (Ahmad, Tirmithi, etc, Hasan/Da`eef, ikhtilaaf) which is today Afghanistan , that will march towards the West conquering everything in site and will remain undefeated until they reach Jerusalem (termed "Eeliyaa'" in the Hadeeth). They and their Ameer will give bay`ah to the Mahdi. However, in the path of this force from the East lies a powerful behemoth called Iran from where the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) said Dajjal will appear with a following of 70,000 Jews in Isfahaan (Abu Bakr, Radee Allaahu `anhu, said this would be in the direction of Khorasan in the city of Isfahan). Thus we can assume there will be a major war between the forces of the Sunnah in the East and the Iranians and their "70,000 Jews" (SaHeeH Muslim) who lie in the path of Jerusalem . While there remains difference of opinion regarding the authenticity of some of these narrations, they seem to be taking shape in spite of the ikhtilaaf.

As is well known, Iran was the bastion of the Sunnah throughout much of Islam's history since the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam). The Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) had said that knowledge would be carried by the people of Salman al-Faarisi, ie the Persians (SaHeeH al-Bukhaari). This was fulfilled in the fact that our Sunnah was recorded and preserved by the greatest Imaams of Hadeeth such as Imaam al-Bukhari, Imaam Muslim, Imaam at-Tirmithi, Imaam Abi Dawud, and others. This legacy continued until the tragic conquest of Iran in the 16th century by the Azeri heretics called the Safavids. Upon their conquest, Iran went from 90% Shaafi`ee to 90% Shi`i nearly overnight.

"The shah is said to have threatened that death would be the penalty for any opposition to his wishes with respect to religion. If anyone had thought this an empty threat, they were soon to be disabused. As the Safawid forces marched across Persia , Shi'ism was imposed at the point of the sword. Sunnis who were reluctant to see the error of their ways were treated with great brutality. Many were executed."

"But such opportunistic defectors from Sunnism, useful and indeed essential as they were, could not provide the theological and legal backbone for the new Shi'i establishment. No one in Persia could do this. Shah Isma'il had to look elsewhere....Many of the leading theologians and lawyers of the Safawid period were of 'Amili origin, including the most influential religious figure of Isma'il's own time, al-Karak. The religious brain drain to Persia long continued: it was not a merely temporary phenomenon." ["Shah Isma`il and the Establishment of Shi`ism", Medieval Persia: 1040-1797, pp. 112-123, David Morgan]

The population had the choice to die or become Shi`ah. The entirety of the `Ulamaa' were slaughtered and heretics from Lebanon brought in to create a new breed of Shi`ism which had only been known by madmen in the hills of the Caucasus and Amili in Lebanon . Since this event, Iran which was a center of Islamic civilization turned into a chasm of darkness and doom for the past 400 years. Iran has been Shi`a for only last 3 centuries of its 12 centuries of its Islamic history. In this time the Safavids moved the capital to Isfahan , the place of Dajjal's emergence. So successful were the Safavids in thwarting the Ottoman's incursions into Europe that the Austrians prayed for their victories in their churches and its diplomats remarked, "Had it not been for the (Safavid) Shah, we would be reading the Qur'an today like they do in Barbary ( North Africa )."

However, in this period only one people were able to present interlude to this darkness. They were a tiny band of a few thousand Afghan tribesmen (mostly Ghilzai Pashtoons) who crushed the Safavids in a series of battles and marched towards their capital, Isfahan , and captured it in 1722. This small band of tribesmen with no formal training in warfare did what the Ottomans could never do, destroy the Safavid Empire. However, as has been the legacy of these fierce tribesmen, no one has ever been able to defeat them, nor have they ever been able to rule as statesmen. Thus, it was only shortly afterwards that they rescinded back into their now independent Afghanistan leaving Iranian rule to Nader Shah and a succession of short-lived dynasties overthrowing each other until the emergence of the Pahlavis from whom the Shah of Iran who reigned in the 70's drew his authority.

In 1998 Iran protested the alleged murder of 10 of its diplomats who were serving as spies in Afghanistan , supporting the Northern Alliance , during the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif. They lined up 200,000 Iranian soldiers along the border with Afghanistan to avenge the murder of their diplomats. The Taliban sent 15,000 soldiers to the border. The Iranians retreated and abandoned their plan to invade Afghanistan . They claimed they were only there to have a parade. Immediately afterwards a deal was struck to have the diplomats bodies flown to Iran . It was a huge loss of face for Iran , a shock to the world and a reverberating echo of history's lesson not forgotten by Iran : the Afghans are their conquerors.

This threat has brought resounding international support for Iran and increased Russian interest in making Iran a nuclear power in the region. Former foes are now binding bonds of friendship with Iran in an attempt to thwart the dropping of a domino in a line that ends in the Mediterranean Sea . However, now a new threat exists for Iran . Increasing admiration for the Taliban and their style of rough "no-politics" style of rule. Recently, in Iran pulpits resounded in admiration for the Taliban during Friday Prayer.

"'The Taliban, which we always curse, have managed to restore security for their people. Why cannot we do the same?' Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi said during Friday prayers in Tehran ."

The Iranian people's dissatisfaction for the darkness and lack of optimism inherent with Shi'ite philosophy, which focuses on the martyrdom of historical figures rather than faith, led them to rejoice in the secularism of the Shah. When the Shah's regime produced increasing corruption and tyranny at the hands of the SAVAC secret police, the Iranian revolutionaries began rallying for support in Univeristies across Iran . They promised Islamic rule, freedom from corruption, and restoration of cultural morality and tradition. In over 20 years since the so-called "Islamic Revolution" this promise has proven a lie. Prostitution and drug abuse are higher now in Iran than they have ever been in its entire history, even during the Shah's secularist rule.

"The report says there are up to two-million drug addicts, some of them schoolchildren, with an estimated five tonnes of narcotics consumed every day in the capital, Tehran."

"'Drug addiction is the rage among schoolchildren, prostitution has increased 635% among high school students and the (growth) rate of suicide in the country has exceeded the record by 109%,' says the report."

"Mr Zam says the average age of prostitutes has dropped from 27 to 20 years over the past few years, with a growing but unspecified number of women involved. Nearly all the young girls who run away from home end up as prostitutes, he said." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_822000/822312.stm
; BBC, July 2000]

This report was conducted by Mohammad Ali Zam, the head of Tehran 's cultural and artistic affairs. According to the report there are:

2,000,000 drug addicts 5 tons of opium used daily in Tehran alone (Iran's capital) Drugs in schools and recreation centres Average age of prostitutes fell to 20 90% (!) of schoolgirl runways lured into prostitution Suicide growth rate doubles 12,000,000 people living in poverty. This conucopia of social ills which have been increasing in Iranian society at an alarming rate, coupled with the insistent denial of the current regime, have left the Iranian people and even much of its regional government and clergy to admire their Sunni eastern neighbours, the Taliban.

Afghanistan had similar social woes under the years of chaos which ensued following the expulsion of the Soviets under Ahmad Shah Masood, Rabbani and the others who make up the current "Northern Alliance" which has its stronghold in Badakhshan, the remaining 5-10% not ruled by the Taliban. In these years of constant war under the ousted Northern Alliance , Afghan girls were kidnapped on their way to school and sold to wealthy land lords in neighbouring Pakistan .

Warlords, upon conquering a territory, albeit briefly, would frequent the homes in search of young girls to use as sex slaves, some far below the ages of puberty. Afghanistan was the world's leading producer of Opium, with some 75% of the world's supply coming from within its borders.

The Taliban eradicated crime in Afghanistan to nearly 0% overnight. They eliminated all opium production in Afghanistan overnight, thereby, receiving lukewarm and reluctant praise from the United States for their elimination of 75% of the world's opium supply. Upon my recent visit to Medina I asked several Afghans visiting from Afghanistan about the situation. When I asked one Uzbek shop owner about the current situation in Afghanistan , he replied, "There is still fighting.." I asked him what he thought about the Taliban, being an Uzbek minority. He remarked, "Uzbek, Pashtoon, Tajik. This has nothing to do with it. What matters is that I can watch my daughter walk from one end of the street to the next and not worry. Whether I like them or not makes no difference." I asked one nomad from Gardes, who was a Pashtoon, in the Masjid an-Nabawi what he thought about the situation in Afghanistan .

He told me with great enthusiasm, "Its very good. We have the Taliban now and we feel safe." I met one Shaykh in the Haram at Makkah and immediately recognized him as an Persian (Dari) speaking Afghan. When I asked him if he was Afghan he replied, "Tajik astum" ("I am a Tajik"). So I remarked, "I see. So you are from Tajikistan ?" He replied tersely, "No, I am Tajik from Afghanistan ". His refusal to acknowledge himself as an Afghan struck me as odd. It turned out he was a Shaykh of Hanafi fiqh in the Haram at Makkah of incredible knowledge and a very excellent Muslim, maa shaa' Allaah. He mentioned that he did not trust any of the parties involved in the fighting and that they must sit at the table and create a multi-ethnic broad based government. He continued, that it seems nobody wants this and that they simply want to kill each other. However, he concluded that Afghanistan is now completely rid of crime and this is something he can not ignore in spite of his differences with the Taliban.

Being someone with extensive personal experiences with the Afghans and constant interaction and contact with them, I find these frequent media reports of brutality under the Taliban as laughable at best, and maliciously false at worst. Anyone familiar with the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto will note the dubious over-dubbed translations of the civilians' words.

Likewise, recent photographs provided by RAWA (feminist group of former Communists, who openly reject Hijab) of alleged Hazara mass graves in a recent CNN special on Taliban "brutality" reveal corpses with Indo-European features common amongst the Tajiks and Pashtoons, whereas the Hazaras are an ethnic group descended from Mongol and Chinese mercenaries who are distinctly Oriental in appearance. One wonders that in spite of all this alleged Taliban "brutality" and supposed "suppression of media", they allow these malicious journalists to wander the country filming completely unharmed. The equation doesn't add up to any sum of logic other than journalistic fabrication and political propaganda which the world has been so familiar with since World War II in swaying political opinion towards government foreign policies.

The current world opinion against the Taliban is directly related to the threat they pose as an Islamic expansionist force in Central Asia . Unlike the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Taliban's ideology is spreading like wildfire all throughout Central Asia much to the chagrin of the Russians and former Communist bosses who rule the Central Asian Turkic republics. This popularity has forged many revolutionary groups who are serious threats to their ruling governments throughout the Turkic republics. It has even spread to the Xing Kiang province of Northwest China with whom lie the origins of the Turkic peoples. Now that the Capitalist world has won its war against Communism, a new threat exists to their democracy": Shari `ah. For the first time in 100 years this threat exists again to the Western World and their allies in Asia such as Russia , India and China . The re-emergence of this threat can be credited to none other than the Taliban. The Taliban's uneasy relationship with its Northern neighbours of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well as its constant policy of hostility to its Western neighbor, Iran, fortell a cycle of events that could lead to the very end of the world according to the Prophet's (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) narrations. Afghanistan emerging as the flowerbed of Jihad in the late 20th and now 21st centuries is no coincidence at all. This makes Iran incredibly nervous.

"'Such people who took the podium in Friday's prayers suggesting envy for the Taliban have insulted the late imam (Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini), and their stance is unacceptable,' the official IRNA news agency quoted Khatami as telling a news conference limited to Iranian journalists."

They have indeed only begun to attack the legacy of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and his curses upon the Companions and Wives of the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam). The only choice for Iran to face this threat is to join hands with their enemy's greatest foes, primarily the U.S, Europe , Russia and India . Thus, they have sealed their membership amongst the disbelieving world and inevitable partisanship of the False Messiah, ad-Dajjaal.

Then, of course, this scenario threatens the current puppet Arab regimes and has their despots quivering in fear. Naturally, an image of wild Afghans nearing their borders demanding bay`ah to a Messianic figure and adherence to Shari `ah would certainly bring a close to the trips to Las Vegas and the long yacht parties. Perhaps some members of the Saudi family might risk losing their majority shares in Euro-Disney. So their solution has been to utilize the most efficient weapon they have in fighting any revivalist movements in the Muslim world: their scholars. Saudi Arabia 's own home grown indigenous Muslim scholarship has successfully placed a sound muzzle upon the Muslim world convincing it that revolution is "fitnah". Of course, they didn't think it was fitnah when they revolted against the Ottoman Empire , thereby, robbing the Muslim world of its last dignified stronghold all at the behest of the British. Thus, utilizing this effective tool, the Saudi scholars have been working overtime to convince the Muslim world that all references to "black flags from the East" are fabrications. I did check into one of these Hadeeth and its "isnaad" or chain of narration. The Hadeeth is as follows:

"Thawbaan reported that the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) said, 'Three will fight for the your treasure (of the Ka`bah), each of them the son of a 'Khaleefah', it will be rendered to none of them. Then from the direction of the East will emerge black flags. Then they will fight you like they have fought none before.' Then some words were spoken which I did not remember. He then said, 'If you see him, give bay`ah to him even if you must crawl over ice. For, verily, he is the 'Khaleefah' of Allah (Khaleefatullaah), the Mahdi". This Hadeeth is found in Ibn Maajah, Ahmad's Musnad, al-Haakim's Mustadrak and others. Now when analyzing the chain of narration found in Ibn Maajah's Sunan I found the narrators to be the following:

1) Reported to Ibn Maajah by both Muhammad bin Yahya and Ahmad bin Yusuf - Both reliable; Imam Muslim has said about Ahmad bin Yusuf, "He is reliable (thiqqah)." an-Nasaa'i has said, "There is no problem in him." ad-DaraaquTni has said, "Reliable and noble (thiqqah nabeel)."

2) `Abdur-Razzaq bin Hammaam as-San`aani - Reliable. Ahmad bin Hanbal was asked about him, "Have you seen anyone better in Hadeeth than `Abdur-Razzaaq?" He replied, "No".

3) Sufyaan ath-Thawri - Too reputable to record his merits. Very reliable. Shu`bah, Sufyaan bin `Uyaynah, Abu `AaSim an-Nabeel and YaHya ibn Ma`een among others said: "Sufyaan is the 'Ameer al-Mu'mineen" of Hadeeth"!

4) Khaalid bin Mahraan al-Hathaa' - Reliable. Ahmad bin Hanbal has said, "Trustworthy (thabt)." Ibn Ma`een and an-Nasaa'i have both said, "Reliable (thiqqah)."

5) Abi Qulaaba Abdullaah bin Zayd al-Harrami - Reliable. Muhammad bin Sa`d has said in his "at-Tabaqah ath-Thaaniyah min Ahl al-Basrah" about him, "He was reliable (thiqqah)."

6) Abu Asmaa' `Amroo bin Marthad ar-RaHabi - Reliable. al-`Ijly has said about him, "Shaami, Tabi`ee, Reliable (thiqqah)."

7) Thawbaan - Companion and servant of the Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam).

8) The Prophet (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam). ["Tahtheeb al-Kamaal" of al-Mizzi and "Tahtheeb at-Tahtheeb" of Ibn Hajar were referenced for verification of the Narrators]

In this chain of narrators, weakness is nowhere in sight. Thus, focus has been taken away from the chain of narration and placed upon the term "Khaleefatullaah" for the Mahdi. They have said that Allah can't have a Khaleefah, since the word refers to a successor upon one's death, wa `eeyaathu billaah. Of course Allah is the Everlasting who can never die. Though they are correct that many of the scholars of objected linguistically (such as al-Maawardi in "aHkaam al-SulTaaniyah" while acknowledging a difference of opinion) remarking this is not a permissible term for the Pious Caliphs (citing Abu Bakr's and `Umar's objection to it), they have ignored the fact that the scholars of Tafseer have given this term legitimacy by exception. Imam al-Qurtubi states in his tafseer of the verse in which Allah's says about the creation of Adam (`alayhis-salaam), "Inny jaa`ilun fi-l arDee khaleefah.." ("verily, I will place in the earth a 'khaleefah'"): "And Adam, `alayhis-salaam, is the 'Khaleefatullaah' in the execution of his laws and orders. For verily he was the first of the Messengers. But there was none in the earth with him? It is said he was a Messenger to his progeny..." So hear Imam al-Qurtubi has found no fault in using the term Khaleefatullaah" in reference to Adam (`alayhis-salaam) about whom Allah said himself, "Inny jaa`ilun fi-l arDee khaleefah.." (al-Baqarah). In volume 6 of "FatH al-Baari SharH SaHeeH al-Bukhaari", Imaam ibn Hajar also uses the term in reference to the above mentioned verse about Adam (`alayhis-salaam) in the chapter, "Kitaab Ahaadeethi-l Ambiyaa', Baab Khalqi Aadam". So based on this Hadeeth's impeccable chain of narration, and no concensus forbidding the use of "Khaleefatullaah" specifically for the coming Mahdi, it is plausible to conclude that there may exist a particular bias against the subject of this Hadeeth by certain scholars from a certain part of the world. Those who have studied Hadeeth know that more leeway has been given for far weaker narrations with more questionable content.

CONCLUSION

Little did the Russians know as they chose to occupy Afghanistan on their way to Pakistan 's warm water ports in Sindh that they were to spark perhaps the final Islamic revival the world would know before the descent of `Eesaa ibn Maryam (`alayhis-salaam). For from that struggle, and from that Jihaad, were to sprout the fruits of a global movement which would envelop the entire disbelieving world in terror. A terror they had not felt since the Sultan's soldiers besieged the walls of Vienna . The disbelievers have found a brief respite and relief in the imbicility of the Muslim world's vocal modernist, occidentalist/occidentopheliac element which rushes to fight the movements for Islamic expansion at its every turn. However, the voices of the modernist movements are growing more and more faint as the disgruntled Muslims grow increasingly louder in their demand for freedom from the oppressive rulers that have been beleaguered at the behest of their American and European masters since the turn of the 20th century. Now at the turn of the 21st century, for the first time in 100 years a country has, regardless of anyone's question of sincerity, proclaimed its law the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) without any compromise. For the first time in over 100 years the Soldiers of Allah are fighting the Russians on Russian soil. For the first time in nearly 100 years, Kashgar is broiling with Islamic revival and demands for an independent Shari `ah based state. The Muslims from Morrocco to Afghanistan flooded into the Balkans and defeated the Eastern Orthodox Chrisitans within their own borders. All of this from one small rocky country in Central Asia, once called Khorasan, now called Afghanistan where the most noble and brave Muslims of the Arab Mujaahideen gathered to join their Afghan counterparts. A brotherhood destined to shake the Earth. The Afghans have always been insurmountable and unstoppable fighters, but never statesmen. The Arabs, when under the banner of Islam, have a grand history of diplomatic prowess. This combination will surely spell the end of Islam's great sleep, and the beginning of a resounding globally concordant Athaan.

Say Inshaa' Allaah...

w-Allaahu A`lam...

I suggest the Muslims who still hate the Taliban open their eyes and come onto the other side of the fence where the breeze of Shahaadah flows.

[Source:http://inkofscholars.com]