CBN.com – NASHVILLE, Tennessee (BP) -- Aug. 22 could be an ominous date for Israelis and Americans based on its significance this year as one of Islam’s most revered holy days, according to a Princeton professor who says Iran may be planning “cataclysmic events” to prepare the way for Shiite Muslims’ awaited messiah.
Bernard Lewis, a professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, warned in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Aug. 22 this year corresponds to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427 on the Islamic calendar, which is when Muslims commemorate the flight of the prophet Muhammad on a winged horse to Jerusalem and then to heaven and back.
Aug. 22, Lewis said, could provide an opportune moment for Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to set in motion the return of the 12th Imam, whom Shiites believe will forever end the struggle between good and evil in the last days.
“Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced,” Lewis wrote in The Wall Street Journal Aug. 8. “It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22.”