The Temple of Doom

We are asking every caring person to purchase books beginning May 15. Why? Because this book can be driven to the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers’ list. Why is that important? It will place this book before tens of million of people and will open doors of opportunity to share its message and wage this battle on secular networks.

The battle can be won, but it has to be fought by knowing the truth (it will set us free), and through prayer.

Millions of praying saints (Daniels and Esthers) can reverse the curse. Esther won the battle:

“If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. What’s more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Daniel won the battle: “The people that do know their God will be strong and do exploits…” (Daniel 11:28)

Below is an excerpt (Pages 26-28) from Dr. Mike Evans’ latest book, The Final Move Beyond Iraq:

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Shia Islam was founded in A.D. 661 by Ali ibn Abi Talib. It was from his name that Shia evolved. It is literally a derivation of Shiat Ali—“partisans of Ali.” As a descendant of Muhammad, Ali was thought to be the last of the true caliphs. He was wildly popular until he came face-to-face in a battle with the army of the governor of Damascus in A.D. 661. It is said that the Damascene soldiers attached verses from the Quran to the tips of their spears. When faced with fighting a force hiding behind the words of Muhammad, Ali’s army declined to fight. Ali, left only with the option of negotiating with his enemy, sought appeasement. While he escaped death at the hands of his enemy in open combat, Ali was eventually killed by one of his own rabid followers.

When Ali died, the governor of Damascus, Mu’awiya, anointed himself caliph. Ali’s son, Hassan, the rightful heir to the caliphate, died under suspicious circumstances, while the next in the line of succession, Hussein, agreed to do nothing until Mu’awiya died. He was soon disappointed yet again, however, when Mu’awiya’s son, Yazid, appropriated the position of caliph and went to battle against Hussein. The bloody battle of Karbala that erupted resulted in the deaths of Hussein and his army. Only Hussein’s baby boy survived the carnage, and he became the hope of reestablishing Ali’s claim to the caliphate.

With the ascension of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the position of power in Iran, we have heard much about the last known descendant of Hussein, Muhammad al-Mahdi, or the Mahdi. Al-Mahdi was the Twelfth Imam in the line of Ali who disappeared down a well at the age of four. Refusing to believe that he was dead, his followers imbued him with timelessness. They declared him to be merely “hidden,” and that on some future date he would suddenly appear to reestablish an Islamic caliphate worldwide. Their eschatology, however, proved problematic; it espoused an apocalyptic upheaval in order for the Mahdi, or Hidden Imam, to ascend to his rightful place of leadership. These “Twelvers” championed the belief that every individual, regardless of their religious belief, would one day bow to Islam—or die.

As time passed and the Mahdi failed to make an appearance, authority passed to the ulema, a body of mullahs endowed with the power to appoint a supreme leader. Perhaps one of the best-known imams was Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Notable among the various dynasties of Persia were the Safavids who ruled from 1501 to 1736. It was under this dynasty that Shia Islam became Iran’s official religion. It was also during this time that Persia was united as a single sovereignty that became the bridge to what we now know as Iran.

It was the Afsharid leader, Nadir Shah, who first declared himself the shah of Iran in 1736. He invaded Khandahar in Afghanistan, and two years after assuming the throne in Iran, he overran India. He amassed great wealth including the seizure of the renowned Peacock Throne and the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor (Persian for “mountain of light”) diamond. (The magnificent diamond was presented to Queen Victoria in 1851 and is now part of the celebrated British Crown Jewels.) Nadir Shah was a tyrannical ruler; his reign ended with his assassination in 1747.

The Afsharid dynasty was followed by the Zand and Qajar dynasties. In 1906, Iran experienced a constitutional revolution that divided the power of rule between the shah and a parliamentary body called the Majlis. The last of the Qajar dynasty rulers, Ahmad Shah Qajar, was overthrown in a coup in 1921, and the Pahlavis—who sat on the Peacock Throne until 1979—took the power as shahs. Ahmad Shah Qajar died in exile in France in 1930.

It was the first Pahlavi, Reza Shah Pahlavi the Great, who in 1935 asked the world to stop referring to his nation as Persia and to use the name Iran instead. Iran means “land of the Aryans” and was the name the natives used in referring to their country.⁴

During more than twenty-five centuries of history, Persians have maintained their unique sense of identity. Though they converted to Islam, they have not always followed the accepted views of the religion. To an extent, Zoroastrianism, the religion of the early Persians, colors the Iranian variety of Islam.

Iran is now not only one of the largest countries in the Middle East, but also in the Islamic world. Because of past experiences, Iran has developed a thorny separatism. Invaded during both World Wars and later set upon by Iraq, Iran has reason to fear foreign influence.

The borders of Iran remained largely unchanged during the twentieth century, but the desire to recapture the glory of the vast Persian Empire has apparently lain dormant. Perhaps this pragmatism is the driving force behind Iran’s seemingly sudden emergence as a budding player in the world’s nuclear superpower game.

It was during the reign of the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that plans to bring Iran into the nuclear age began. Bushehr was to be the site of the first two reactors and, indeed, building on the site began in 1975. While the shah was still in control, research and development on fissile material production was also initiated. This, however, as well as all of the shah’s other ambitions, ended with the Islamic revolution of 1979.

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