Because of Khomeini’s effective prohibition on speaking or teaching about the coming of the Islamic messiah, Birjandi explained, his book had been banned in Iran in 1981. Nevertheless, during that time, he and his wife had developed an even greater fascination with-and love for-Shia eschatology. The more forbidden it was, he said, the more intriguing it became.
“We were determined to understand how and when the end would come, what would be the signs of the End Times, and how a devout Muslim should live in the end of days. Most of all, we wanted to understand what would happen on Judgment Day and how to be saved from the flames. After Khomeini died, an entirely new era of intellectual and religious freedom began to dawn. Not for Jews or Christians or Zoroastrians or other religious minorities, mind you. But certainly for Shia scholars and clerics. Certainly for Souri and me. That’s when we began to openly and aggressively accelerate our studies about all things related to the Twelfth Imam.”
“So when was the ban lifted?”
“In 1996. And that’s when the thing took off-over the next year or so. I honestly never thought of it as a book for the general public. I originally wrote it to serve as a textbook for a seminary class I hoped to teach. But somehow it became hugely popular, almost overnight, and soon I was speaking and teaching all over Iran.”
“And interest in the Twelfth Imam skyrocketed as a result.”
“Well, interest in the subject definitely grew exponentially, but not because of my book,” Birjandi humbly insisted. “My book just happened to be rereleased at the perfect time. One millennium was ending. Another was beginning. Talk of the End Times was in the air. Suddenly, it seemed as if everyone was writing and speaking about the coming of the Mahdi. Then Hamid Hosseini read my book. He gave it to President Darazi to read. Then the two of them invited me to begin meeting with them once a month to discuss my findings and talk about these and other spiritual and political matters. When the public learned of our meetings through the national press, interest grew in a way that shocked us.”
“It vaulted you into the status of the world’s leading expert on Shia eschatology and a close advisor to the nation’s leaders,” David said.
“Strange but true,” Birjandi conceded, shaking his head. “But along the way, something changed for me.”
“What?”
“Well, first of all, you have to understand that during this time my elderly parents died. Then our only child, a daughter, was killed in a car accident in 2007. Souri was devastated. I was devastated. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t teach. My fellow professors were very understanding. They gave me a sabbatical to grieve and rest and recover. But I kept sinking. I was sure that I would be next, or Souri. I thought about death constantly. I became a slave to fear. What really happens when one stops breathing? Does that heart beat again in paradise? I was sure such a place existed, but I doubted the certainty of my ever arriving there. After a lifetime of study, I realized I had no answers. And the joy of life was gone. I had no will to teach, no will to be a good husband. I barely desired to get up in the morning.”
“What did you do?” David asked.
“I made a decision not to give up on Allah,” Birjandi said. “Many people do in similar situations, and I understand why. They’re hurt. They’re depressed. They blame God. But let me be honest with you, son-and I am not being pious when I say this-I just knew in my heart that somehow Allah was the only answer. I knew he was there, even though I felt so far from him. Despite all my religious training, all my family’s history, all my knowledge of the Qur’an, I felt cut off from God, and it haunted me.”
David said nothing, waiting for the old man to continue at his own pace.
“I thought about it for a long time,” Birjandi continued after a moment, “and I concluded that the problem was that I only knew Allah intellectually, and that wasn’t enough. What I really needed was to experience him. Now, Shia Islam, as you know, is a very mystical religion. We teach students that there are higher and higher levels of spiritual consciousness they need to discover and help others discover. But as you probably also know, Shia doctrine teaches that God’s love is not available for everyone. It’s only for those who go through a very specific spiritual journey. So in my classes, I would teach my students to meditate until they entered a trance. In that trance, if they were truly devout, they would eventually see visions of ancient imams and the various prophets and other historical figures. The goal is to go higher, deeper, closer to Allah. But truthfully I had never taken this so seriously for myself. I loved learning about Allah, but I had never really tried to know him personally.
“Then one day I went for a long walk through our neighborhood, alone with my cane. I knew I was sinking deeper and deeper into despair. I thought about ending my life, but I was not ready to die. I believed that committing suicide would condemn me to hell for sure. I was lost. Yet so many looked to me as if I had all the answers. Finally I came home and went to my room. I begged Allah to reveal himself to me. I pleaded that he show himself to me. I told him that I had done everything he had asked me, but it wasn’t enough. I was ready to do more, but first I asked him to come and speak to me directly. But nothing happened. Months went by and nothing happened.”
David listened, entranced.
“I became even more despondent. I wouldn’t talk to my wife. I would stay up all night, unable to sleep. I would turn on satellite TV and mindlessly scan through the channels, listening to whatever was on. And one day I came across a program that caught my attention. It was an Iranian man who had been on the streets of Tehran during the Revolution in ’79, shouting, ‘Death to America!’ For some reason, he and his wife applied to graduate school in California; they were accepted, and they went. But then their marriage started failing and their lives started falling apart, and they questioned Islam. It promised peace, but he said it gave them no peace.
“And that’s when I started to listen more carefully. Until the man said he did a careful study of the Qur’an and the Bible and concluded that the Bible was true and that the Qur’an was false and that Jesus was the One True God. Then I cursed the television and turned it off, as furious as I had ever been.
“But after a few nights, when my wife was out doing errands, I couldn’t help myself. I became curious and found that show again and kept listening. And the next time she went out in the evening, I listened again. I wanted to be able to prove that this man was insane. I wanted to be able to write an article or a book refuting everything he said.
“Then something very strange happened.”
77
“What?” David asked.
“I simply knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I knew that this man on television was the Creator’s answer to my hunger. That I could not refute him. Through this man, God was telling me the simple truth about Himself. About His Son, Jesus. The anger in my heart for this man had displaced the despondency. Now that anger was suddenly gone, and only peace remained. Peace and the most solid, unmistakable knowledge that it was Jesus I should follow for the rest of my days.”
David felt as though he had been struck mute. He heard Birjandi’s words, but he could not believe they were coming from the mouth of such a revered Islamic scholar and counselor. Was this all a trick? But the man seemed to be filled with an energy that was growing as he told the story.
“Then I had this intense hunger and thirst-not for food and water but to know more about Jesus.”
“What did you do?” David finally asked.
“What could I do?” Birjandi responded. “I already knew the Qur’an held no real answers about Jesus. Some tidbits, to be sure, but nothing solid. So one weekend when my wife went to Qom to visit her sister, I left the house and took a bus to Tehran. I must have asked a dozen people for directions, and finally someone helped me find my way to an Armenian church. I went there and I begged them for a Bible. They wouldn’t give me one. They feared I might be a spy. I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at me. I’m an old man, not a spy.’ I pleaded with them to read to me about Jesus just for an hour, even just for a few minutes. They asked me if I was a Christian. I told them the truth-that I was a Muslim. But they said they could only give Bibles to Christians, never to Muslims. I told them I wanted to know more about Jesus. But they sent me away, and I was very aggrieved.