Ayatollah Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, senior Shia cleric and member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that elects Iran's Supreme Leader, has recently sparked a public storm in Iran following two interviews broadcast on Iranian television in October 2024. Addressing the recent developments in the Middle East, Mirbagheri stated that these events reflect Allah's great plan for the people of the world: a war between the infidels and the believers. He noted that this war, which is designed to separate the two camps in order to purify the camp of the believers and allow them to come closer to Allah, would persist until the believers' final and absolute victory. Moreover, achieving this end is a goal that even justifies the death of one-half of the world's population. Therefore, even the deaths of 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza are of no import because they serve this supreme divine goal. Mirbagheri compared Iran's current situation to the period of "the battle of the trench" in the year 627, when the Prophet Mohammed and his supporters defeated the members of the Quraysh tribe who laid siege to the city of Medina and attacked the Prophet. He stated that a united Islamic front will facilitate the creation of a new world order that will pave the way to the End Times (akhr al-zaman) and to the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi (the Messiah) who will establish a regime of divine justice on earth.

Mirbagheri's statements drew sharp comments from critics who argued that the statements reflect a radical and distorted interpretation of Islam. Senior cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ayazi argued that Mirbagheri's remarks are contrary to Islamic thought and to the Quran, which greatly values human life. According to a member of the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom (jâme'e madrasin howze 'ilmiah Qom), the wars waged by the Prophet Muhammad also prove that he tried to limit the number of their victims as far as possible. Ayazi also noted that Iran's citizens are currently suffering from poverty and economic strife and their hardships should not be further exacerbated by war. Mohammad Taghi Fazel Maybodi, a reformist cleric, joined the criticism and blamed Mirbagheri for encouraging Islamophobia and Iranophobia and for causing the young generation to turn away from religion. In an interview to the reformist newspaper Ham

Mihan, which labeled Mirbagheri a "theoretician of war," Maybodi stated that anyone who sought to lead the Iranian people into war is acting illogically and contrary to Islam and must be opposed. Reformist journalist and intellectual Abbas Abdi unleashed a fierce attack against Mirbagheri's apocalyptic vision and warned against these ideas becoming the basis for official state policy. Commenting on Iran's recent presidential elections, in which Masoud Pezeshkian defeated the radical candidate Saeed Jalili, Abdi wrote that it is terrible to imagine what would happen if the election was won by people who shared Mirbagheri's ideas (that is – Jalili).

Mirbagheri's Path from the Academy of Islamic Sciences to Politics

Mirbagheri was born in 1961 to a family of clerics in the city of Qom, and was educated in the local religious college where he later taught. During his studies he was influenced mainly by two senior ultraconservative clerics: Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who was considered for many years until his death at the age of 85 in 2021 as the radical right-wing marker of the Iranian religious establishment, and Munir Al-Din Hosseini Hashemi Shirazi, one of the authors of the Iranian constitution after the Islamic revolution and founder of the Academy of Islamic Sciences in 1981. At the time, Shirazi argued that Islam should serve as the foundation for all types of sciences and that Muslims must create a pure Islamic civilization. After Shirazi's death in 2001, Mirbagheri headed the Academy, which has become increasingly influential in politics and among the senior command of the Revolutionary Guards. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected President of Iran in 2005, several members of the Academy assumed governmental roles. The president of the Academy Ali-Reza Piruzmand, for example, was appointed Cultural Advisor of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

In the past two decades, Mirbagheri became increasingly involved in politics. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, he supported Ahmadinejad, and in the presidential elections of 2013, and in 2024 supported Saeed Jalili's candidacy. In the 2017 and 2021 elections, Mirbagheri supported Ibrahim Raisi. At the same time, Mirbagheri criticized former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–1997), Mohammad Khatami (19979–2005) and Hassan Rouhani (2013–2021), accusing them of betraying the principles of the revolution, promoting capitalist and liberal-western ideas in politics, culture, and economics, and undermining the religious foundations of Iranian society. According to Mirbagheri, a government that fails to advocate for a battle between believers and infidels, strives to join the global community, and supports globalization and western material civilization cannot be considered an Islamist government and the President of Iran must be elected on the basis of his commitment to bringing Iran closer to Islamic civilization and to the reappearance of the Mahdi.

In 2016, Mirbagheri was elected the Alborz district's representative to the Assembly of the Experts, and in 2024, represented the Semnan district in the Assembly. After President Raisi's death in a helicopter crash in May 2024, Mirbagheri rejected invitations from radical circles to submit his candidacy in the preliminary presidential elections and urged them to endorse "revolutionary and faithful" candidates. Today, Mirbagheri is considered the leading theoretician of the Paydari Front (the Front of Islamic Revolution Stability), which is identified with the radical

right wing in Iranian politics, and has close ties to Revolutionary Guard circles. In July 2024, Iranian media reported Mirbagheri's meeting with Hassan Abbasi, head of the Center for Borderless Security Doctrinal Analysis, which is identified with the Revolutionary Guards. Following the meeting, the Iranian newspaper Sazandegi, identified with the pragmatic camp in Iran, called Mirbagheri "the shadow theoretician" and argued that the meeting reflects the intention of Iran's radical camp to develop a plan for dealing with the repercussions of Pezeshkian's election.

Mirbagheri's Worldview

Mirbagheri's statements over the years reflect messianic eschatological beliefs and an approach that supports a protracted battle between two camps — the infidels and the believers — until the End Days, a demand to Iran to lead the efforts to establish an alternative world order, and a radical anti-western approach centered on total rejection of any expression of western influence in society, culture, politics, and the economy.

Mirbagheri believes that Muslim society is in the throes of the End Days era, which is reflected in internal struggles among believers and severe tests set by Allah. On his view, the battle against heresy and modernity is critical for the reappearance of the Mahdi. In an interview to the television station IRIB Ofogh in July 2019, Mirbagheri stated that the purpose of the Islamic revolution was not to enable Iran to join the international community or adopt liberal democracy, but to pave the way to the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. He wondered why the West's efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East are considered moral while the confrontation that Iran is managing against the West to expedite the Mahdi's reappearance is considered immoral. Mirbagheri's ideas on this matter align with the messianic beliefs of former President Ahmadinejad, who from the beginning of his term as President stressed that his government's policy is designed to pave the way to the Mahdi's return. Moreover, for Ahmadinejad and his inner circle, it is not sufficient to wait for the Mahdi's reappearance — there is an obligation to actively promote it. For members of the religious establishment, such views constituted a significant threat, potentially undermining clerics' status as intermediaries between believers and the Concealed Imam. They also feared that cultivating radical messianic beliefs would end in a public crisis of faith if the Concealed Madhi failed to appear.

As noted earlier, Mirbagheri preaches in support of a continued war between infidels and believers. According to Mirbagheri, some people mistakenly believe that the valley of faith that believers are required to cross is a valley of speech, but it is in fact a valley of war and grueling tests. Mirbagheri also advocates that Iran is on the verge of a new phase in its battle against its enemies in its effort to establish a new world order and that Iran's greatest danger comes from the West-oriented camp (gharbgera’i), which is preventing the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people from fulfilling their historic mission and is seeking to replace the "era of the reappearance of the Mahdi" with "the American dream."

Mirbagheri also claimed that the world order, led by the US is collapsing and the alternative order of the End Times is destined to be victorious. He stated that the establishment of a new order in

the Middle East will be made possible by weakening the US, shifting power to Asia, and reinforcing the Axis of Resistance. Still, he stressed, if Iran fails to play a role in shaping the new world order in its own interests, the West's plot to establish a new Middle East might succeed. Moreover, if Iran fails to live up to its mission, Allah will select another nation to achieve the final victory. This worldview is not only characteristic of Iran's ultraconservative circles but is also reflected clearly in statements in recent years by senior Iranian officials, including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, addressing the contemporary changes in the global system.

With respect to his position on the West, Mirbagheri expresses uncompromising opposition to all western influence and calls for a cultural revolution that will block Western influence that, according to Mirbagheri, aims to undermine the foundations of Islamic society. Here, too, we can see similarities between Mirbagheri's view and the official principled position of the rulers of the Islamic Republic, led by the Supreme Leader of Iran, who consider the infiltration of Western influence a threat to Iranian society and especially to its younger generations. Mirbagheri emphasizes that the West is waging a "soft war" against Iran in various areas, in an effort to undermine the Islamic values that are fundamental to Iranian society.

Mirbagheri's views on women's status and the use of the internet and social media reflect his intransigent position. Not only does he advocate mandatory hijab, he also believes that the West is actively seeking to change the status of women in Islamic societies and give them a Western-style education, one that is unrestricted and contrary to Islam. He considers the internet, social media, and even mobile telephones as paraphernalia of Satan, and believes that all sciences, including economics, psychology, and sociology, should be grounded in religious principles. On the issue of the economy, Mirbagheri supports the position of Iran's Supreme Leader, who advocates for a "resistance economy" whose main principles are self-reliance and reducing Iranian dependency on foreign entities. Mirbagheri argues that Iran should prefer the Islamic economic development model over the western economic development model because only the Islamic model can be victorious.

Mirbagheri's political views are aligned with the beliefs of senior cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi and Khamenei in the Guardianship of Islamist Jurist (velayat-i faqih-i motlaq) and the idea that the government's role is limited to executing the will of "the Islamic jurist" — Iran's supreme leader — and that the Assembly of Experts must support him and take steps to execute his orders and has no right to oversee him.

Mirbagheri and the Russian Theoretician Alexandr Dugin

Mirbagheri's ultraconservative and anti-Western ideas constitute an common ideological foundation shared by the Iranian clergy and by Alexandr Dugin, Russia's prominent political philosophers among today's Russian radical nationalists. Dugin is a leader of Eurasianism, which calls for an anti-imperialist struggle, supposedly to unite the entire world under Russia's leadership in order to liberate it from Western cultural colonialism. Dugin stresses the