Why Would Khamenei Claim Victory? Here’s Why A little knowledge of Islam makes his apparently odd actions completely clear. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/why-would-khamenei-claim-victory-heres-why/

It’s always hard to know if President Trump knows more than he is saying, as his recent feigning of a rift with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to lull the Islamic Republic of Iran illustrates. Whatever Trump really knows or does not know, however, his statement Friday about the behavior of the Ayatollah Khamenei since the U.S. decimation of Iran’s nuclear program demonstrates the crying need in the West for foreign policy analysts who understand the doctrine and practice of Islam. Through the prism of Islam, much of what Trump professes to be puzzled about becomes perfectly clear.

“Why,” the president asked, “would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war torn Country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the War with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie, it is not so. As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie.” Yet in fact, lying is a centerpiece of Khamenei’s religion.

The concept of taqiyya, or religiously sanctioned deception, originated among Shi’ite Muslims, developed during the time of the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, in the middle of the eighth century, when the Shi’ites were being persecuted by the Sunni caliph al-Mansur. Taqiyya allowed Shi’ites to pretend to be Sunnis in order to protect themselves from Sunnis who were killing Shi’ites. Some Shi’ite thinkers turned the deception that had become a necessity into a virtue.

Jafar al-Sadiq, who died in 765, had a servant who was suspected of having revealed some of the secrets of the faith. The Imam declared: “Whoever propagates our tradition is like someone who denies it…. Conceal our doctrine and do not divulge it…. Taqiyya is our religion and the religion of our fathers; he who has no taqiyya has no religion.”

Some sayings of the Imams include, “He who has no taqiyya has no faith”; “he who forsakes taqiyya is like him who forsakes prayer”; “he who does not adhere to taqiyya and does not protect us from the ignoble common people is not part of us”; “nine tenths of faith falls within taqiyya”; “taqiyya is the believer’s shield (junna), but for taqiyya, God would not have been worshipped.” So why shouldn’t Khamenei, who reveres Jafar al-Sadiq and the other Imams, lie? It’s a central aspect of his identity as a “man of great faith.”