The time of the Mahdi

Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan watched the images of destroyed Tehran as he prayed his rosary. The city of more than eight million people was a smoldering, radioactive heap of ruins. The Israelis denied that they were behind the bombing, and the media, under orders from Washington, tried to cover their tracks. They tried to blame everything on an obscure Sunni militia hostile to the Iranian Shiites. But the various intelligence reports that Zaydan received all concluded that it was a Jericho IIIA strike, even though it was not yet clear where the shot had come from. 

It would not work this time. Zaydan, Saif Al-Adel as he was known among his men, was an Egyptian Sunni, an early collaborator of Osama bin Laden, and the leader of the Salafist jihadist organization Al-Qaeda. He was, however, hosted by the Shiite mullahs in Iran. It was time to stir up the Muslim masses against these Western godless people who had dared to attack a major city where the call to prayer was sounding for eight million worshippers.

The organization that Zaydan led had had many difficulties, many betrayals at its very top and many humiliating defeats. Many of the early fighters had gone underground and taken refuge in prayer for better times. Al Qaeda had also gone into near-silence since May 2, 2011, when Osama bin Laden, the founder of al Qaeda, was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 

Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan, himself, had taken time to meditate at length on the historical events he had experienced since October 6, 1981, when he participated in the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the charismatic president of the Arab Republic of Egypt, in Cairo. Zaydan understood that the Muslim masses had been systematically manipulated by the Americans, by the European stooges of Washington or Jerusalem. Each time, the leaders of the movement and the war actions had been corrupted, deceived or manipulated by the Israeli or Western intelligence services. All the strategies of the jihadist international had been foiled and defeated. They had been too impatient, God's time was not man's time. 

Jihadists around the world were seemingly disunited. Too many leaders had appointed themselves, few were up to the task of such a spiritual project. Zaydan was not the Mahdi, so he had only worked for the advent of this messiah by using his experience as a field man and organizer. With the help of the movement's leading theological figures, such as Issam Muhammad Tahir al-Barqawi and Abu Qatada al-Filistini, Zaydan patiently coordinated al-Qaeda's networks and established good diplomatic contacts in all Muslim nations. He limited military operations to a few strikes in Syria with the al-Nosra Front, in Yemen with AQPA, or in Somalia with the development of the al-Shabbaab movement. Yes, Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan's action had been discreet but decisive. He had prepared the invasion of Europe. 

Now, because of the irresponsible pride of the Jews, the time had come. The people of Islam were upset, bruised in their flesh. The soldiers of Islam were not only in the Muslim countries, they were everywhere in Europe, thanks to the labor immigration of Arab-Islamic origin wanted by the atheistic capitalists. Thanks to the emotion caused by this odious attack, all the Muslim suburbs of Europe were going to be aroused to revolt in order to promote a chaos favorable to the invasion of the soldiers of Jihad. 

Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan was not the Mahdi, the expected messiah to lead this army. So he had prayed for a long time and waited for God's chosen man to show up. 

And he had come: the man, in his thirties, had the black spot on his right leg, the slanted eyes, the mole and the scar on his forehead, and the mole in the shape of a myrtle leaf between his shoulders, predicted by the hadiths. He also had the complexion of a highborn Arab, his hair and beard were black and full. He had a majestic and wise air. He was a man of the lineage of Hassan, the eldest son of Ali and Fatima, daughter of Muhammad. This man had the look of one who is on a first-name basis with the angels, he was absolutely charismatic.

When the man introduced himself to Zaydan and the other leaders of the movement, all of whom were experienced men, they were speechless. This man had appeared out of nowhere, had known the moment they were all gathered. He had simply shown up, without an escort. Everyone had let him pass. He gave off an incredible aura, he was a commander. He was the long-awaited Mahdi. He had spoken softly, but with great authority, setting forth his vision. His tone was that of a man flooded with light. Many faces in the assembly were covered with silent tears.

From then on, efforts were made to hide the Mahdi, to keep him alive, to wait for the moment.

Therefore, the great actors of the Muslim world had been actively met and consulted. 

The government in Istanbul had suffered an attempted coup in July 2016. The stateless Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülen movement who had coordinated the destabilization effort, was living in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in the United States... All the attacks that Turkey suffered were since then teleguided by the CIA. The Turks were all the more willing to support a Muslim movement, such as al-Qaeda, in the Middle East and Europe because the government in Ankara, which was under considerable pressure from the Americans in NATO and from the neighboring European Union, needed a break. Zaydan was well aware that Ankara was thinking of playing its own card and re-establishing its status as a neo-Ottoman empire. If it was in the direction of fighting for Allah, everything was possible, the Mahdi said. He had approved the military agreement with the Turks.

Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan's men also had excellent contacts in the Gulf states. In Saudi Arabia, in particular, Prince Muhammad bin Salmane bin Abdelaziz Al Saud had had to thwart several coup attempts and treacherous maneuvers by Washington since the purges he led in his kingdom in November 2017. Since then, Prince Saud's relations with the West had been abysmal. The prince knew he was a dead man, in and out of his kingdom, if the international chessboard was not turned upside down. The man was brave enough to support the great offensive and preserve the kingdom's status within the Ummah, the world's community of believers. He had given his financial approval, as had all the rich states in the region.

Finally, Russia, a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, had several million Muslims among its citizens. Muslims were the second largest religious group in the Federation and were among the most loyal elements of Russian society to Moscow. In its conflict with the West, Moscow could not but welcome the opening of a second military front in Europe. The jihadist movement had the financial and military backing of Moscow.

The Middle East, Africa and the Maghreb would provide the millions of soldiers hungry for glory and respectability that the Mahdi needed to restore the golden age of Islam.

Tomorrow, the Mahdi would deliver his message of holy war to the Muslim world on all television channels and on all internet networks. Millions of Muslims would see the dazzling forehead and the supernatural look of this man. They would be called upon to overthrow Rome, to overwhelm unbelieving Europe and to re-establish Islam in its widest limits, from the south of Europe to the Tarim basin, to the west of China.