August 22.

This is coolbert:

August 22 again!

That magic date is not too far away now.

Time will only tell if Professor Bernard Lewis is right. That the date portends something ominous.

I did receive some interesting comments from readers concerning my initial blog about this date. My replies in BOLD.

"Anonymous said...
Let me put it this way I was born into a Azeri Shia family, although not a muslim anymore, I did attend Islamic Maddrssas in Iran.

This date is relatively insignificant, also Iranian mullahs are not as suicidal as (downright sane compared to) Hezbollah."

There does seem to be signifcant differences as to what this date means to Muslims. Shia and sunni see this date in their calendar differently:

"Rajab 27 (which falls on the last day of Mordad in the Persian calendar year of 1385) as the night of Mi'raj and Mohammad's purported flight to Jerusalem. In Shi'a Iran Rajab 27 is not recognized as the night of Mi'raj but is the day of first calling or Mab'as."

"This date is relatively insignificant". This does surprise me. I would have thought that it would be highly significant. And it would have taken an Islamic scholar of the repute as Bernard Lewis to understand what is the possible tie-in here. The Islamic world is going by a lunar calendar, not the solar one as followed in the west. WE in the WEST would not normally have seen anything special here. Did Bernard Lewis see something? I cannot say. It may all well be a coincidence.

"Iranian mullahs are not as suicidal as (downright sane compared to) Hezbollah." I for one did pay close attention to the speech that the President of Iran made recently at the United Nations. It is reputed that he [the Iranian President] said the following things occurred:

* A halo of light descended upon him while he was making the speech.

* The collected delegates listening to the speech sat transfixed for the twenty minutes of the speech, unblinking.

Whoa!!

JSBolton said...

Maybe he's hinting that permission to fire a longer range missile will be given to Hezbollah for that night.

They may have the capacity to send a dirty bomb, which would cause an evacuation.
If Iran goes nuclear, though, they can be nuked. Iran is afraid of being invaded; one can tell by the way they have Hezbollah supporters carrying placards which say 'don't invade Iran'.

"They may have the capacity to send a dirty bomb" This is an interesting suggestion. I have felt that the "dirty nuke" would be the weapon of choice for terrorists for some time now. Can be done easily and cheaply, perhaps without almost NO EFFORT at all. Delivered by conventional means. A weapon of terror if there ever was one. Maybe NOT lethal, but would cause panic and TERROR!

Big Al said...

I can't imagine that it would be just hot air. The leaders of Iran know that although the West is cursed with a short memory, our memories are not so short that we will have forgotten these threats by 8/24 if nothing is forthcoming on 8/22. If our emotions go from wariness to mockery over a non-incident then Iran will lose a bit of leverage over those of us who can be manipulated by their threats. Also, perhaps more importantly, a lot of talking-the-talk without walking-the -walk will cause Amini... Amanad...um you-know-who to lose face in the "Islamic Street", something a wanna be King-pin such as himself would fear.

Exactly. If you make threats, and this is a threat, and then do not carry out the threat, you DO lose face and are to be taken less seriously in the future. Especially with the various Islamic factions now sky-high emotionally with what has transpired in Lebanon, a let down now would be really counter-productive!!

To all who commented, thank you one and all. After 22 August comes and goes, we will discuss this further. If we are able. I sure hope so. Cheers!!

coolbert.