Iran has chosen as expected the son of the former Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei has been hailed as the new Ayatolla. Israel has instantly threaten to kill him. They are consumed with their Neocon Netanyahu’s ignorant ideas that completely fail to grasp that this is a religious leader and the Shia Muslims have a very detailed and central belief in an end-of-the-world scenario, but it is fundamentally different in its key figures and sequence of events from the one preached by many Christian evangelicals.
Both traditions believe history is moving toward a divinely ordained climax, but the main character of that climax is different. For Christian evangelicals, it is Jesus Christ returning in glory. For Shia Muslims, it is Imam al-Mahdi returning to establish justice.
My father always taught me that it is NOT what I believe that governs the actions of any adversary, it is what they believe. Killing the Ayatollah did nothing but REINFORCE their view that America and Israel are agents of the Great Satan. The killing of their religious leader like Ayatollah Khomeini or even the political leader Qasem Soleimani are often interpreted by believers as signs or precursors that fit into the existing narrative. The way a Shia Muslim views the U.S. and Israel in this context is more nuanced than a simple one-to-one fulfillment of prophecy.
