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Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of ... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-prophecy-insight-i...

EDITION: UNITED STATES

WORLD NEWS | Tue Apr 1, 2014 10:39am EDT

Apocalyptic prophecies drive both


sides to Syrian battle for end of time

Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by Al-Wafaa campaign at the Palestinian refugee
camp of Yarmouk, south of Damascus April 1, 2014. REUTERS/Rame Alsayed

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Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of ... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-prophecy-insight-i...

Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end o


Conict in Syria kills hundreds of thousands of people and spreads unrest across the
Middle East. Iranian forces battle anti-Shi'ite ghters in Damascus, and the region
braces for an ultimate showdown.

If the scenario sounds familiar to an anxious world watching Syria's devastating civil
war, it resonates even more with Sunni and Shi'ite ghters on the frontlines - who
believe it was all foretold in 7th Century prophecies.

From the rst outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic
forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of the
conict say its path was set 1,400 years ago in the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad
and his followers.

Among those many thousands of sayings, or hadith, are accounts which refer to the
confrontation of two huge Islamic armies in Syria, a great battle near Damascus, and
intervention from the north and west of the country.

The power of those prophecies for many ghters on the ground means that the three-
year-old conict is more deeply rooted - and far tougher to resolve - than a simple
power struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel foes.

Syria's war has killed more than 140,000 people, driven millions from their homes
and left many more dependent on aid. Diplomatic efforts, focused on the political
rather than religious factors driving the conict, have made no headway.

"If you think all these mujahideen came from across the world to ght Assad, you're
mistaken," said a Sunni Muslim jihadi who uses the name Abu Omar and ghts in one
of the many anti-Assad Islamist brigades in Aleppo.

"They are all here as promised by the Prophet. This is the war he promised - it is the
Grand Battle," he told Reuters, using a word which can also be translated as
slaughter.

On the other side, many Shi'ites from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are drawn to the war
because they believe it paves the way for the return of Imam Mahdi - a descendent of
the Prophet who vanished 1,000 years ago and who will re-emerge at a time of war to
establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world.

According to Shi'ite tradition, an early sign of his return came with the 1979 Iranian
revolution, which set up an Islamic state to provide ghters for an army led by the
Mahdi to wage war in Syria after sweeping through the Middle East.

"This Islamic Revolution, based on the narratives that we have received from the
prophet and imams, is the prelude to the appearance of the Mahdi," Iranian cleric
and parliamentarian Ruhollah Hosseinian said last year.

He cited comments by an eighth century Shi'ite imam who said another sign of the
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Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of ... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-prophecy-insight-i...

Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end o

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