Kenan Çamurcu wrote: Khamenei's "ghaybet-i suğra" replica
For those who are not familiar with the literature, a brief explanation first: The “gaybet-i suğra”, or small loss, in the title describes the period in which the 12th imam of Twelver Shiism disappeared in the cellar of his family home in the city of Samarra, Iraq, and communicated with his followers through four regents. When these regents died, the “gaybet-i kübra”, or great loss, period began. It is normal that the mythological narrative of the child imam not being found in the cellar by Abbasid agents and soldiers, but meeting with intermediaries and conveying his messages, is not questioned by the average religious person due to the structure of the sect that is open to unconditional belief in unproven extraordinary circumstances.
There are many critical studies that this story is invalid both in terms of Shia hadith methodology, historically and in terms of theology. According to Shia sources of narration, there is no one who saw the birth of the child who is claimed to be the Twelfth Imam. There is also no testimony that his mother was pregnant. There is only the claim of the four intermediaries that the child imam is alive. In Shia, the right of guardianship of the jurist derives its legitimacy from this intermediary.
According to Shia history, the Twelver Shia were a small group within the Shia that were considered extremists until the 12th century. Iranian thinker Abdul Karim Soroush reminds us that the Ahl al-Bayt imams were seen only as pure and pious scholars in their time. They did not claim to be more, nor did their followers have such a belief. Soroush says, “Today in Iran we are extreme Shia, that is, extremists.” In the text called Ziyaret-i Jamia-i Kabire, which is considered the manifesto of the faith of the Twelver Shia, it is stated that “The sustenance of the creatures is in their [the imams’] hands. When we are resurrected on the Day of Judgment, we will stand before them and they will settle our accounts.” Soroush says:
“Shiism was not like this in the beginning. It was a moderate movement. The people we call Imams were religious scholars. Both Shiites and Sunnis agreed that these people were pure, spotless people. They were scholars and everyone accepted their words. However, things like receiving revelation, being innocent of sin, having knowledge of the unseen were not present in Shiism.”
Eban b. Taghlib (d. 758), who saw Hazrat Hussein's son Ali (Zeynelabidin/Imam Sajjad) and was one of the companions of Imam Ja'far Sadiq, described Shiism as follows:
"When people differ about what came from the Messenger of Allah, take the word of Ali. When people differ about what came from Ali, take the word of Ja'far b. Muhammad [Ja'far as-Sadiq]." (Nejashi. d. 1058. Ricalu'n-Nejashi. 1997: 12).
In other words, it is not necessary to be a Twelver to be a member of the Ahl al-Bayt sect. It is certainly not necessary to be an official Shiite in Iran. The only valid requirement of being subject to Hazrat Ali's guardianship and guardianship of the Prophet is not the words of Twelver Shiite.
Sorush reminds us that Imam Ja'far Sadiq was the grandson of Abu Bakr, that he named his daughter Aisha, and that the names of Hz. Ali's children were Abu Bakr and Omar. He also has an interesting memory:
“A friend of ours was listening to a preacher’s sermon. The preacher said, ‘One of the believers went to Imam Musa Kazim, but the Imam did not pay attention to him. The man said, ‘Sir, I am your disciple and friend, why do you not pay attention to me? The Imam said, ‘Because you recently had a daughter and named her Aisha.’ This friend of ours, who studied history, said to the preacher, ‘You also know that Imam Musa Kazim had a daughter named Aisha.’ The preacher was very angry and did not speak to him until the end of the meeting.”
The reason why the jurisprudence of Twelver Shiism resembles Sunni jurisprudence may be the effort to gain approval from the majority (mawma) Muslim community in order to gain superiority over other Shiisms. This was actually the strategy that Khamenei followed under the banner of the “axis of resistance.” While it is true to assume that Khamenei established the “axis of resistance” as a kind of Shiite NATO, his was actually a military doctrine aimed at spreading among the Shiites by gaining the approval of the Sunni majority. The most effective way to do this was to use the anti-Semitic anti-Israel sentiment in Sunnism and to become the standard-bearer of the “Palestinian cause.” Otherwise, is there another reasonable explanation for spending all resources on destroying Israel, which has no border with Iran?
Since I will discuss the psycho-political aspect of Twelver Shiism in detail in another article, let's suffice with this and return to our topic.
It is known that Khamenei took shelter in an unknown location at 03:00 on Friday, June 13, 2025, when the first wave of Israeli airstrikes began. As speculations increased, the head of the “Institution for Publishing Khamenei’s Works” claimed in an interview on state television that the people were curious and anxious about the leader, and that “the enemy was making great efforts to make the people anxious” when it was reported that many messages had been received in this direction, and asked for prayers for Khamenei. These words further increased the anxiety and uncertainty in the fans’ stands.
Although Khamenei has not been seen in public for almost 10 years, he only speaks to guaranteed visitors who have been subjected to security screening on his sterile campus. Although the program of the visit, which was limited to a small number of people and which included distinguished figures from the Islamic world, included me, we had gone through several stages of strict security screening. It was a much more frequent screening process than airport security protocol.
Despite this, it was not clear whether he would attend the Muharram/Ashura ceremony on his own campus for the first time in his 36 years in power. The regime's dignitaries and notables gathered in his Husseiniyeh in full force, believing that he would suddenly appear, and were careful to take photographs. The Beit's official photographers posed their cameras, taking care to highlight the symbolic name of whichever faction they were siding with for the post-Khamenei era. Khamenei made a surprise appearance at one point during the ceremony. Those gathered in Husseiniyeh were filled with the joy of finding solace in the appearance of a leader they had not seen for more than two weeks after the devastation caused by the 12-day war.
Foreign Minister Arakchi did not hide his surprise at Khamenei's brief appearance in his message from Brazil, where he was present for the Bricks meeting:
“The most beautiful photo I have seen since arriving in Brazil.”
It is not yet clear whether the occultation has ended or whether Khamenei will return to his life in the bunkers.
No one knows why Khamenei has not come to light despite the war being over. The fact that the bureaucrats of the House or other famous names speak as if they are aware of the situation is as reliable as the narrators who spoke for the child imam who was allegedly lost in the cellar in Samarra. Because it is very well known that Khamenei does not communicate with anyone in the places he hides and changes frequently. No digital or frequency devices are used in those environments. In other words, no one is aware of his situation. They know what the couriers are telling them and they keep telling them over and over again on the microphones, embellishing this little information. In fact, they are using the current crisis and chaos as an opportunity to propel themselves to the forefront.
While it is said that Khamenei had no contact with the outside world during his “occultation” period, Sipah’s former commander Mohsen Rezai told cameras that Khamenei personally led the 12-day war. He did not stop there, he compared this war to the war with Saddam and said that Khomeini assigned an intermediary commander to the war with Iraq due to his old age and that this caused problems , thus elevating Khamenei above Khomeini. However, Khomeini, whom Rezai said was “very old”, was 80 when the war started and 88 when it ended. Khamenei is now 86.
It is understood that Rizai, who also tried to run for the presidency, told imaginary stories because he thought he would be in a high position after Khamenei. For example, before Trump’s attack, he said: “If America attacks, I promise you, we will take 1,000 Americans captive in the first week and give them a few billion dollars for each one.” Opposition mullah Mohammad Rinani, who made fun of Rizai’s rant, said in his X post: “When economic and military affairs are mixed, such a thing comes out, don’t ask. This military economist doesn’t know how much a few billion dollars is. Also, are we going to take 1,000 Americans captive? He’s blown the numbers.”
These aside, the speech Khamenei made when Saddam was caught in a pit was viewed and shared by millions on social media: “World history is full of lessons. What is the situation of the cruel, arrogant, destructive Saddam now? He was forced to live in a pit. He is ready to do any shameful thing to save his dirty and shameful life.”
Iranians say in thousands of messages, both visual and written, posted on social media that Khamenei is hiding in a hole like Saddam and will be caught sooner or later. Some of them feel no need to hide their faces and voices. Although the regime, which suffered a heavy defeat against Israel, has begun to take revenge on the opposition, the wall of fear seems to have been overcome.
Qasem Mohammadi, a former member of Sipah, wrote the message, “Until yesterday, he was keeping others under house arrest, now he is himself. ” Striking, of course. What he meant was the incarceration of Mousavi and his wife in a house that had been converted into a prison, due to the protests that started after the coup attempt against former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who won the 2009 presidential elections, was prevented from taking office. On Khamenei’s orders, without trial, without interrogation. They are still in prison. For 16 years.
In an interview two days ago, Mohsen Sazgara, one of the important figures of the Iranian revolution, attributed Khamenei’s failure to leave the bunker after the ceasefire to his severe anxiety that he was either dead or being assassinated by the Israelis. Sazgara is a doctor of history and politician who worked closely with Khomeini in Paris during the 1979 revolution and served in high-level positions in the revolutionary governments. He is also one of the founders of Sipah, which was designed as a people’s defense force to protect the revolution. After being imprisoned several times during Khamenei’s term, he immigrated to America after he was released due to a heart attack and health problems. In 1994, when I invited Abdulkarim Soroush to a conference in Istanbul, he was his companion. During the time he was our guest, we had long conversations about Iran, the revolution and the region. His analyses were quite good. He is a serious scientist and a good politician. When I visited Iran in 1997, he hosted me at the holiday village he had built for workers on the Caspian coast when he was a deputy minister.
Sazgara states that despite the ceasefire, the Israelis are waging a shadow war and the hunters are pursuing the assassination list they have. Sazgara says that this is why Khamenei does not trust anyone, and that his son, Mojtaba, who he wants to succeed him after his death, is being held in a separate place, with inside information.
Sazgara's assessment is as follows :
“The leadership of the Islamic Republic is in disarray. After the assassination of Sipah’s top commanders, the new commanders who succeeded the successor are incompetent and incompetent. They have completely abandoned electronic devices and communicate by courier. Khamenei is constantly changing places in 17 or more bunkers. How can one consider the country to be governed while he is in this state and communicating by courier? Khamenei has to wait for the courier to arrive to make a decision. The situation is chaotic at the moment. Despite this, the authorities refuse to step aside and the country is gradually moving towards collapse.”
Israel's operations against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, which are advancing slowly but resolutely, have reached a peak level where the spirit of radicalism originating from Tehran can be prayed for. There is no need to take the Houthi tribe into account in Yemen. I have written before that it is nothing more than a missile ramp for the Quds Force.
It is understood that Israel’s war plan is not limited to stopping Iran’s nuclear capacity and destroying its missile launchers. The operation will not be completed without changing the political regime in Tehran. It is clear that Tel Aviv will try every means to achieve this goal. Israelis support the coming to power of a government that will not be hostile to Israel, whether through a popular uprising or an internal coup. Since it is clear that the current regime cannot continue, various actors of the system and Iranian opposition in the diaspora are in intense activity to become players in the new revolution.
Although Prince Reza Pahlavi, who resides in America, is very eager, and even stops using the Pahlavi surname and calls himself “Javid Shah,” it seems impossible for him to find a place for himself in Iran’s sociological equations. Since he is aware of this, he is content with being a member of the “transitional council” established in America. Although, when the Iranian regime was suffocating due to waves of Israeli attacks, he followed Khomeini’s path and went to Paris and waited for a while to be made the leader of the country. However, when he could not find what he expected, he returned to America again.
Sultanism is the phase in Iranian history that the Iranian people have left behind and surpassed. Even though it is not the kind of sultanate that our strange and anachronistic religiosity sanctifies, and despite its secular nature, it is not a reaction to constitutional monarchy. Therefore, change will come with actors who take the 1979 revolution as a turning point. For this reason, the imprisoned leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has been advocating radical change since 2009 with the slogan of “returning to the principles of independence, freedom and republic of the revolution” and says that the stage of reform in the Islamic Republic has long been passed.
There are signs that suggest that the regime's internal contradictions are increasing. For example, General Yahya Safavi, the deputy of Commander-in-Chief Khamenei, and Mohammad Ali Jafari, the former commander of Sipah who was dismissed (he was appointed head of the cultural headquarters), did not issue a single message during the war. Jafari is the general who revealed that the militarist and paramilitary armed forces loyal to Qasem Soleimani attacked the protesters during the 2009 protests. Of course, he was praising them.
Sipah's media outlet, Tasnim, had made a warning at the height of the war: "Some shady and unstable people will bring up surrender to Israel, including the Qom ulema. They will have a former official of the country act as the spokesperson for this matter. That official has not yet responded to their request." Tasnim later removed this news.
It is thought that the names that Tasnim calls “shady and dubious” are the Larijani brothers. His brother Ali Larijani is a former speaker of the parliament. His brother Sadık Larijani, who is a mullah, is a former head of the judiciary. I invited Sadık Larijani to the “Islam and Modernism” symposium that we organized in 1996 when Erdoğan was the IMM. He had no official duty at the time. He presented an interesting paper on Fazlurrahman and Islamic modernism.
Ahmadinejad is the most complicated politician in the history of the republic. He is intelligent, an organizer, an expert in macro and long-term calculations. When Khamenei ostracized him and he fell out of favor, he did not hesitate to show his claws. Referring to the 2009 protests, he exposed the use of common criminals in prisons to create an excuse for military intervention in social events, and that they were wreaking havoc and made the regime back down. In his exposé, Ahmadinejad praised the speech of the Sipah general Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Syria, in which he gave the task of attacking protesters and burning down shops to the militia he formed from common criminals. It is known that his influence within Sipah and the bureaucracy still continues thanks to the effective staffing during his presidency.
Quds Force Commander Ismail Qaani, whose photo was recently hung among the generals killed in Israeli attacks on state television in a program in his memory, suddenly appeared in Tehran with the ceasefire. The PR team staged the scene “among the people. ”
One of the endless mysteries is the Qaani issue. He was in Lebanon when Nasrallah was killed. Where was he when the Sipah commander and the army chief of staff were killed in Tehran while meeting with force commanders and second and third degree generals? Why was Qaani the only one not at the meeting? The answers to these questions are unknown. He is also one of those mentioned in the coup rumors against Khamenei.
While Mossad was establishing a UAV base in the heart of Tehran without the knowledge of all Iranian intelligence, the regime had made torturing women who were uncovered or wearing undesirable headscarves at the metro exit its most important issue. While the guards of the headscarf were meticulously positioned to make life miserable for women, the drone factory that would assassinate force commanders and senior generals was working hard right under their noses.
The regime's helplessness against Israel is a state of complete ideological decay. While the war continues on Iranian soil, the National Security Council has not been able to meet even once. Analyses that attribute such indicators to the regime losing control are not wrong. The propaganda of Iranian radicals and their unjust admirers that Israel is being defeated is ridiculous.
Shortly before the Israeli attack, Khamenei had said simply, "We will neither negotiate nor will there be a war." Other high-level figures were making sarcastic comments in the media that, let alone Israel, even America would not dare to attack Iran.
Speaking about the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khamenei said: “The leaders of America, the American president, his vice president and none of the top officials knew about what was happening for two or three days. They disappeared. We are not like that. God forbid, if this nation is tested with a bitter experience, we ourselves will put on our war clothes, go ahead of the nation and be ready for sacrifice.” When the Israeli attack started, Khamenei’s running to the shelter before anyone else is a source of mockery, accompanied by this video.
The commander of the Sipah Air and Space Force, Emir Ali Hajizadeh, who shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane over Tehran in 2020, killing 176 people, was giving assurances that no one would dare to attack Iran. He was also one of those killed in Israel’s first wave of attacks. Khamenei’s closest advisor, former MGK Secretary Ali Shamkhani, claims that there is no security threat in Iran that would assassinate any official, and Sipah commander Salami said, “If a single strand of Iranian hair is cut off, we will destroy the world.” The list goes on. Israel killed them all in the first wave of attacks. Tehran losing over 20 generals in the first rank of its command so quickly was a surprise for the Iranians and the world. It naturally caused astonishment. It is not clear whether to attribute it to Israel’s superior talent or Iran’s great weakness.
The killing of a country's chief of staff, the commander of Sipah, force commanders, and senior generals is a serious trauma, but the Tehran regime trivializes the killing of Sipah and the general commander of the Army and all of the second men. It does not dwell on it at all. The news of the killing of Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force, was passed over between the lines in the Iranian media. When the ceasefire was declared, Qaani appeared in Tehran, but again it was not reported.
The authorities do not dwell on the destruction of all units and buildings, including Sipah's main headquarters, the destruction of all strategically important centers and locations of the army, the shooting of nuclear facilities, weapons depots, missile depots, helicopters and warplanes. Because they do not want to appear weak in the eyes of the people who oppose and react to the regime. However, Iran's military archives, secret documents, operation plans, in other words, its military memory and mobility have been destroyed. They have nothing left but digital documents uploaded to the cloud. Israel can easily hack the documents in the cloud. There are no more buildings left for the commanders to hold meetings. They do not even hold meetings for fear of being assassinated or shot.
After repeating the words “We slapped America in the face” and “We inflicted irreparable destruction on Israel”, Iranian foreign minister Arakchi said “I went to meet with the Europeans by land with honor”. Because Israel had closed the airspace. Israeli jets were freely roaming the skies of Mashhad. There was no air defense system or Iranian warplanes in front of them. There were no Friday sermons wagging their fingers at defenseless protesters, no frowning mullahs, no Khamenei, no army, but there was plenty of media hype.
Why didn't Tehran hit Ben Gurion Airport? Military facilities, Haifa port, headquarters? Israel's nuclear facilities are not underground like Iran's, but in open, visible places, why didn't the Iranian missiles hit them? They only hit civilian settlements, markets? Either because they lack missile capabilities or because they don't want to escalate the war.
The missiles launched by the Iranian regime in response to Israel’s airstrikes are like hiccups. Like those launched by Hamas from Gaza and Hezbollah from Dahiya as the anniversary of October 7 approaches. As the countdown continues and missile launchers are destroyed, the number of missiles launched by Iran will decrease and eventually end. In contrast, what is happening in Israel is a devastation that is included in the Israelis’ cost calculation.
The strangest war in military history may be the war between two countries without borders, Israel and Iran. Israel's justification for the war is relatively understandable. It claims that Iran is using its military, financial and political power to wipe Israel off the map, that it is increasing its military capacity for this purpose and is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and that it is therefore attacking Iran to defend its right to exist. It is true that the Khamenei regime wants to destroy Israel, they say this openly. To this end, it has ordered proxy forces to attack Israel, allocated nearly $6 billion annually to organizations fighting or preparing to fight Israel, transferred resources to groups conducting propaganda against Israel in countries, etc., all of which are true. In other words, Israel, as a sovereign country that is a member of the UN, has sufficient solid evidence.
Iran's opposition to Israel is purely ideological. Tehran has spent years pursuing a highly romantic cause that claims Israel occupied Palestine and Jerusalem will be retaken. In gatherings where Khamenei is present, the storytellers (professional eulogists) shout that he will pray as a victorious conqueror in the Omar Mosque (they call it Al-Aqsa Mosque), and Khamenei proudly listens to these praises and nods his head in approval.
By breaking the historical record of non-Semitic Iran’s support and patronage of Semitic Israelis, the Islamic Republic is making the Iranian people pay a heavy price for its mistaken decision from the beginning, as Israel has managed to organize its Semitic Arab cousins against Iran. But the fact that the people will pay the regime for this price has been proven by the numerous uprisings that have been suppressed with increasing violence and force each time.
Israel’s “rising lion” operation has driven the final nail into the coffin by destroying the instruments of force and the brute force of a political regime that had already lost its moral and ethical energy and was in the process of collapse. Intellectuals, artists and politicians who reject Israel’s military operation believe that the intervention of foreign powers into the natural flow at a time when the tyranny has lost its legitimacy and is on the verge of collapse only harms the new and clean beginning. Israelis defend themselves with the thesis that the radical regime, which is on the verge of making an atomic bomb, cannot be left alone any longer. Although Khamenei has sworn that no atomic bomb will be made, he asks why the nuclear facilities are being built seventy, eighty or a hundred meters underground.
Civil resistance is not starting because the Iranians foresee that the regime, while not being able to show its presence against Israel, is capable of reacting with massacre and slaughter if the people take to the streets. They will probably take action after carefully weighing what is left in the prelude to the process that will begin with street clashes with the regime forces.
Khamenei, who hid during the first hour of the Israeli attacks and has not yet emerged, is taking out the pain of his defeat against Israel on the people. In order to correct the image of the weakened regime, he is threatening the Kurds in particular with serial executions. While the Islamic Republic can do all kinds of disinformation, when people say on social media, “This is a war between Israel and the regime,” they are accused of being Mossad agents. For example, an ordinary and average Iranian, Mohammad Emin Mehdevi, was executed on charges of “psychological and media operations against Iran.” The regime’s paid militia also stopped the people escaping from the bombs during the Israeli attacks on the roads, searched for hours, harassed and intimidated them. The aim is obviously not to fight Israel, but they are afraid that the people will rise up when the regime has no more strength and they are preventing this.
The Iranian people understand very well that Tehran struck the evacuated section of the US base in Qatar, with prior notice and thanks and appreciation from Trump. They know that the regime staged this stunt to intimidate and deter the opposition majority. It is very clear that the primary enemy of the absolute guardianship of the jurisprudence regime ruling Tehran is not America or Israel, but the people.
Medyascope
