Last Year A Leading Iraqi Shiite Cleric Compared Kurds To Rogues And Said Imam Mahdi Will "Save" Them

Last year, Jalal al-Din Ali al-Saghir, a leading Iraqi Shiite cleric who is a former member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and served as the chairman of the Paris Mosque in France when he was in exile, compared the Kurds of Iraq to rogues in a religious sermon and said that they will be annihilated by the Shiites' long-awaited saviour Imam Mahdi.

The racist and hateful speech, titled, "The Kurdish Movement and the Dawn of Mahdi Vanguards," describes Kurds as "rogues" and "renegades" who have departed from religion and morals. Shiites believe that Kurds will be "saved" by Imam Mahdi, the mysterious Messiah figure of esoteric Shiite doctrine as well as popular Shiite folklore.

In other words, Shiites are twisting their prophesized conquests as acts of grace and redemption for the conquered slaves.

The West brings "democracy" when it kills and invades, and Shiites bring "redemption" and "religion" when they do the same. Both are oppressors, but the Shiite more so because they use the veneer of religion to mask their crimes and transgressions against justice.

The United States oppresses others for economic, political, and strategic reasons, but the Shiite clergy oppresses others in the name of religion which is worse because spiritual liberty is more sacred and valuable than economic and political liberties.

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Below is an excerpt from the article, "Shiite Cleric's Comments Stoke Baghdad-Erbil Tensions" by Bassem Francis that was published in Al-Monitor on August 22, 2013.

Saghir is the preacher of Buratha mosque and a prominent member in the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (ISCI), led by Ammar al-Hakim. In a lecture uploaded to Facebook and YouTube, Saghir described Kurds as “rogues mentioned in the books of epics and tribulations," saying that Imam Mahdi (the twelfth Shiite Imam) "will avenge them when he appears.” He added that “the first war of Mahdi will be against the Kurds. He will not fight the Kurds of Syria, Iran or Turkey, but the Kurds of Iraq alone.” The preacher’s speech has sparked resentment throughout the region’s Kurdish community.
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It should be noted that in April during the escalating crisis between Erbil and Baghdad, the leader of the “Sons of Al-Ghayari Bloc” and the so-called “Bader 9,” Sheikh Abbas Muhammadawi — who is also very close to the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki — gave Kurds living in Arab areas an ultimatum of one week “to leave their homes and return to the Kurdistan region, or they would face death.”

Furthermore, the Kurdistan Islamic Scholars Union has also condemned al-Saghir’s lecture. “We demand that Saghir issue an apology to the Kurdish people. Instead, he issued a clarification statement, saying that his speech was not made on political grounds. However, everyone knows why he has raised such an issue at this time,” the Union said.

For more information about Saghir's racist sermon read the article "Shia Leader: The Awaited Imam Mahdi Will Fight the Kurds" by Hevidar Ahmed that was published in Rudaw on August 29, 2012. Excerpts:

Sagheer cited some texts about the subject and concluded that “these could be some of the signs of the appearance of the awaited imam, but in order for these expectations to come true, a strong earthquake needs to hit Syria and Turkish soldiers must land in Cizre region.”

According to Sagheer, events must match the chain of events mentioned in the narratives of Jabir bin Yazid al-Jufi. If the events do not match, then the recent activities of the Kurds will have no relation to the appearance of the awaited imam.In his lecture, Sagheer analyzed the current situation in Syria and expected that the country would be divided into five regions. This division of Syria Sagheer sees as the earthquake which Imam Baqir mentions.

“As a result of this earthquake, the Kurds of Syria will announce a political entity of their own, but the Turks and Arabs will suppress this Kurdish entity and eventually be eliminated by the Turks,” Sagheer said.

Sagheer referred to the Kurds in Iraq and Syria as “mariqa” in Arabic which means “renegades.” This has compelled Kurdistan Islamic Scholars Union to release a letter of condemnation.
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However, in his lecture — now published on the Internet under the title “The Kurdish Movement and the Dawn of Mahdi Vanguards” — Sagheer explains that “mariqa means departure from something. For example, we can say ‘the arrow departed from the bow,’ but this departure has a negative sense. In Arabic, the word describes a group of people who desert or depart from a certain system.”

“In Iraq, the largest group that Imam Mahdi will fight, after the converted Shia, are the Kurds,” Sagheer said in his lecture. “Not as a nation, but the Kurds who rebel against the new Iraqi government, which is the Islamic government.”

According to Sagheer, it is still unclear if events are indicating it is time for Imam Mahdi to appear. However, he said, “The secession of the Kurds from Iraq and Syria and forming an indecent Kurdish state is nearing and they are just waiting for the zero hour.”

Sagheer denied that he was inciting people against the Kurds, but in his lecture he clearly talks about the need to prepare for “the time of decisiveness” and that “such times need decisive people,” which could be interpreted as a message to the Iraqi Shia to be prepared for a war with Iraqi Kurds.

Shiite hostility and aggression towards Kurds dates back many decades and centuries. Khomeini famously called the Kurds of Iran who rebelled against the Islamic Republic during its formation the "children of Satan." The demonization of Kurds has a longer tradition in Islam than the demonization of Jews.

Read this excerpt from the essay, "Aspects of Kurdish Demonology" by Dr. Zurab  Aloian:

The demonization of the Kurds, or rather their mysterious images in the eyes of the outsiders, goes through the whole Islamic history, too. Not surprisingly, there are many sayings and proverbs like the Arabic: “there are 3 misfortunes in the world - rats, locusts and Kurds” (“thalathat fawaji': al-jirdhan wa-l-jarad wa-l-akrad”) and “the Kurds are a tribe of the jinns” (“al-akrad hum at-ta`ifa min al-jann”).

The written sources also serve as evidence for such ideas. Thus, Ibn al-Jawzi narrates that in 1064 the hunting Kurdish militants had learnt that the king of the local jinns called Saiduk had died and in order not to be harmed by his servants people should lament. Then, the crying and keening were carried out by prostitutes and imbecile men (safsaf) in Baghdad, Wasit and Khuzistan. Remarkably, the people there had no doubt that the Kurds could well have the first-hand knowledge about the death of the demon.

The most recent case of demonization of the Kurds took place on the 17th August, 1979, when Ayyatolah Khomeini had declared Kurds "the children of Satan" and called for a decisive strike against them.

In broader terms, these examples conform with the general phenomenon of the cloaking of foes in mysterious, often negative images. However, in the historical prospective, the demonization of opponents through ascribing evil characteristics to them never leads to the desired results. Ironically, the Satanites whom man seeks to destroy include his own group. For man in turn becomes a Satanite for all those whom he calls Satanites.

Khomeini and his followers demonized the opposition to his regime wrongfully. Khomeini was installed by the "Great Satan" United States into power so he was far from a principled crusader for justice, truth, and freedom.

The Iranian Shiite clergy is led by arrogant hypocrites who falsely accuse their domestic victims of being demons and agents of outsiders, when it was them who took the hand of the United States and Israel in the 1980s during the Iran-Contra scandal.

So it is important to realize that the Shiites do not have clean hands, not in Iran or Iraq. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq it was US-trained Shiite death squads that did the majority of the killing.

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There is a famous hadith in Shiite religious scripture that says "never marry anyone of the Kurdish (people) for they are part of the Jinn (demons) whom the screen was lifted from them." This is religious foolishness that reflects racist beliefs among Muslims. The idea that human beings who refuse to be enslaved to your religion are "demonic" is stupid and morally wrong.

Dr. Zurab  Aloian writes:

Thus, the jinn have almost entirely passed into Kurdish popular tradition from Islam, or rather from popular Arabian beliefs, in which the surrounding world - deserts, mountains, stones, trees - was inhabited by the jinn. The generally accepted opinion is that the term is derived from the verb JaNNa (“to cover”, “to conceal”). Another version connects the term with the common Semitic janna (“garden”, “grove”, “copse”), which might illustrate the residence of these demons. According to the third etymology, the name jinn is a loan-word from the Latin genius, spirits with similar features.

The word shaitan has also penetrated Kurdish mythology from Islamic religion, although it has a very complicated history. There is little doubt about the cognition of this word with the Hebrew Satan, the Adversary of God. The matter is that before their exile, the Jews had the conception of Satan as a servant of God (Zech. III, 1). The Iranian influence in Babylon must have changed the position of Satan making him God`s Adversary, just as Angra Mainyu/Ahriman in the cosmic beliefs of the Zoroastrians.

It must be kept in mind that the demonization of Kurds originates from the head of the Shiite clergy, from the leaders of the priesthood. They seek to mobilize the ignorant masses who blindly follow their violent and oppressive cult against the Kurds and other groups by using the language and imagery of demonology.

When you label someone Satan in the Muslim world half the battle is already won. It is a very deceptive and dishonourable trick that does not belong in warfare.

Imam Mahdi, the saviour of the Shiites, sounds like an arrogant hypocrite and an oppressive liar because he denies the cultures, liberties, and rights of anyone who is not a Shiite, such as the Kurds and Jews.

This Imam does not sound like a saviour for all mankind, but only for a select group of initiates, in which case he is not a saviour at all but a religious fraud.

Could this fraud, this Imam Mahdi, be on his way? It's possible. Last September, Landon Shroder wrote in an article for Small Wars Journal called, "Iraq, Syria, and the Twelfth Imam":

"The Shia believe in a prophecy that the 12th Imam will return after the destruction of Syria and its armies."