The religous leader known as Imam al-Rabbani, in an undated photo on the religious leader's website.
Claiming to be the "Muhammad of our time," a controversial religious leader based north of Baghdad has attracted the attention of Iraqi security forces, who made arrests earlier in the year targeting followers of the man calling himself "the Imam al-Rabbani."
In a report from February, Aswat al-Iraq describes the cult-like organization that surrounds al-Rabbani as "an extremist religious group."
At least 28 of al-Rabbani's followers were arrested in January and February by Iraqi security forces in Diyala Province, according to statements by local police carried in the Arabic-language media at the time.
Further details about the arrests have not emerged, but they number as another in a series of confrontations between cult-like religious movements and Iraqi security forces after 2003.
Rabbani claims in his preaching that in each era there is "a new Muhammad," and that he is in fact the "Muhammad" of the present era. Such claims will be regarded as heretical by the mainline interpretations of both Shi'a and Sunni Islam.
The religious leader also instructs his followers, known as the Ansar al-Imam al-Rabbani, or "Adherents of the Imam al-Rabbani," to give up reading and other forms of study, and instead to refer to his teaching alone, Aswat al-Iraq writes, citing Qasim Jabbar, a researcher in Islamic studies.
Jabbar says that the group's leader, known to his followers as "Imam al-Rabbani" is a man named Fadhil Abd al-Husayn al-Marsoumi. The preacher's website, www.alrabbany.com, also identifies him by this name. The site also claims that Rabbani is descended from the prophet Muhammad, although Slogger contacts in Khalis report that the man's family and clan are not known to boast such lineage.
The researcher said that al-Marsoumi "began his claim of prophetic powers in early 2003, which brought him into dispute with many high-level clerics who denounced his claim."
Rabbani studied in the village of Jadidat al-Aghwat in Khalis, along with proselytizing in the Khalis public market, Jabbar told the news agency. His followers organized many demonstrations, and are recognized for wearing a particular garb known as the "Bayji dishdasha" during their demonstrations.
Rabbani's message gradually spread, according to Jabbar, and the movement opened offices in across Iraq, as well as publishing an official newspaper and a website. His followers also seek to establish a satellite channel based in Cairo on the Egyptian NileSat network, the researcher said.
The preacher directs his message against the Shi'a branch of Islam, Jabbar said, adding that al-Rabbani views Shi'ism as resting on erroneous foundations. Some observers say that they see parallels with the Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam, said Jabbar.
The movement remains strongest in the majority-Shi'a town of Khalis in Diyala province.
Videos
Below are two undated videos, in Arabic, of al-Rabbani preaching. Both show recordings of the preacher apparently addressing followers during a sermon.
Arabic speakers may view the preacher's remarks as somewhat disjointed or even incoherent, as several commenters on the video-sharing site YouTube have also written in Arabic and English.
Some of the preacher's remarks from th video above are translated below:
I ask for the help from God against the strong, the strong devil, and we always hear this phrase, and without any intent, but we don’t see who asks the devil to help us against the devil, we say I ask God help against the devil. The devil said I ask God's help against the devil except the one who remembers the essence of divinity -- the realty of the devil -- the essence of godhood and the realty of the devil, his time and the time of his existence, and then the idea of asking God's help against he who stalks us appears, then we say God help us against the accursed devil. The right way. (The devil) says God I will to make people forget about you and turn their attention from the right way.
Rabbani continues:
The devil's enmity, there is no enmity in the world, no enmity in morals and no enmity in any other thing. The only enmity is the enmity in knowing God, the enmity exists in what comes to one’s mind when he remembers that he is in a gloomy world and he wants to enter the door to the light to take God, to take the knowledge that God is there, and to take the existence of God to improve his appearance. Here he meets with the devil, and then it would be the right time to take the basmala (i.e. to say "in the name of the merciful God").
The speech continues in this manner and then concludes:
Thank God that when we joined the straight path, when we joined the unseen, when we joined the religion, when we associated with al-Imam al-Rabbani and when we associated the believers in the straight path. They are Muhammad's community, and Muhammad's community has the certainty, has roots in certainty, it has the light, and there is no nation but this nation. This current Islamic community has nothing to do with Muhammad's community. Mohamed has nothing to do with the immoral community and the Quran has nothing to do with the disbelievers.
A second video is embedded below:
Rabbani says, in part:
I am the mercy of Islam, the mercy for the people on the earth, the guidance. I don’t claim that I am the people's lord; I am a simple man, from a simple village, God resembles me. Frankly, I say God resembled me. It is possible that God can resemble a man. Frankly I say this to the educated person, he will understand it. I say God resembled me, God chose me and took me from a peaceful soul and put me in another peaceful soul using an extended rope. And I came to this time and I want to extend the blessing and I want to save my companions the Shi'a from the Shi'a scholar. I want to unite everybody in one soul . . .
The religious leader continues:
God is the light, and God’s words are the light. And the light is related to the light, it can’t be seen and it can’t be seen. But the light is brightness and I am the brightness. The brightness I have is the mind which is here and there. Wherever I go, God is with me and around me.
Other commenters on the YouTube pages where these videos are hosted have seemed to disparagingly associate the Imam al-Rabbani movement with Shi'ism, but other posters point out, correctly, that the group is not Shi'a in the religious sense.
Further comments spin off into even more fantastic conspiracies regarding the origin of the videos and the cult-like movement that surrounds the so-called Imam al-Rabbani.
Such type of cult can be found in London , too. Check this link:
http://share-international.org/
http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=234944619&view=findpost&p=1644754
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