Brother Abdull was born and raised in Iran as the grandson of an ayatollah and he saw firsthand how Islam and socialism mixed together and impassioned young people to radically take over the nation.
Most Christians are not aware of the mix between Islam and socialism, even though they are watching it play out today in the most recent election this week with the socialist Muslim mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani.
“My grandfather was a stout, imposing man. His gray beard covered his neck and rested on his plump chest. His dark eyes were half covered with sagging skin and separated by a large, prominent pockmarked nose,” Brother Abdull writes in his new book Jihad: The Day I Died. “He commanded fear from everyone he met. He was an ayatollah.”
Ayatollah is a title reserved for the top Islamic clergy leaders in Iran. They are both political as well as religious leaders. Muslims rely heavily on ayatollahs to guide them to learn what Allah expects.
Ayatollahs, like many socialist dictators before, came to power in Iran in 1979 by promising redistribution of wealth. They preyed on the poor and promised to take over Iran’s vast oil reserves, redistribute wealth, give everyone free gas, free medical care, and even a free paycheck.
The young people in Iran went wild with the promises and even marched in the streets, demanding an overthrow of the Shah of Iran.
Brother Abdull writes in his book, “The Ayatollah used socialist ideas to create an uprising against the Shah, saying that an Islamic Iran would give people the power of Iranian wealth, equally distributing the money from oil, creating equal access to health care and providing social services for free.”
Like the Ayatollah’s in Iran’s 1970s, the newly elected Mayor of New York City has promised a redistribution of wealth to provide the poor with affordable housing, free transportation, free childcare, free debt relief, free medical care, and even free food.
When Zohran Mamdani’s critics compare him to socialist leaders like Mao Zedong or Kim Jong Un, he is quick to point out that he is a ‘democratic socialist’, insisting that his form of socialism is merely a part of a healthy democracy saying, “I’m a Democratic socialist, and what socialism means to me is a commitment to dignity, a state that provides whatever is necessary for its people to live a dignified life. So the typical big three that we talk about are housing, health care, education.”
Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini also believes in democracy. He strongly argued “We believe in democracy. We believe in freedom, too….When we speak about religious or Islamic democracy, some people think that such democracy is only manifested at ballot boxes and through elections, that elections are only one manifestation of religious democracy. Democracy means a system which is based on religion and Islam.”
Islamic groups in the United States have said that Muslim leaders need to take over the country through “ballots or bullets” like in the video below, which is a clear echo of Iran’s revolution in 1979.
Muslim groups with strong ties to terrorism have been the mayor-elect’s biggest supporters.
But beyond politics, perhaps the most important connection between Islam and socialism is spiritual. Both socialist nations and Islamic nations tend to take the anti-semitic and the anti-Christian stances. Though socialist nations like China, North Korea, and Cuba seem to be anti-religious and Islamic nations like Iran, Syria, and Yemen seem to be extremely theocratic, the two worlds actually mesh very well together.
Brother Abdull described a scene in his book very reminiscent of the recent Pro-Palestinian protests in New York that Zohran Mamdani joined. Just as the protestors chanted for the complete destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea,” so too were the chants of the students in 1979 in Tehran. The Ayatollahs were closely aligned with the Palestinians and their fight against Israel.
Brother Abdull was assigned to guard the streets during the protests of the Islamic Revolution remembering, “Some zealot had climbed the wall of the citadel and was shouting, “Death to America!” through a white bullhorn. The frantic, furious crowd lapped up every word and repeated it back in unison again and again, louder every time.”
Brother Abdull’s first tank commander after the Islamic Revolution “had no experience in mechanized warfare. He was an Islamic freedom fighter who had spent time in Palestine. His only experience had been in guerilla warfare against Israel. Prior to arriving in Iran, he had never even been in a tank!”
According to Brother Abdull, the Iranian Ayatollahs were so dedicated to the Palestinian cause that the very first official visitor to Iran after the Revolution was Terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, to represent the people of Palestine.
This points to a deeper connection between socialism and Islam. And though the two seem opposed to each other, they often champion the same causes. The primary explanation for this common cause seems to be a spiritual one, because once they conquer the common enemy of Christianity, they soon turn on each other.
Brother Abdull learned this when he was being tortured in Iran’s most notorious Evin Prison.
“Do you think you are special, Abdull?” The guard asked Abdull as he beat him. “Do you think your life means anything to me? I have executed thousands of men and women for far less than what you have done. All of those who were once loyal to the Shah? They cried like little girls before I was done with them. I killed every last one of them, Abdull, just like I am going to kill you. When I was done with the loyalists, I turned my sights on the Mojahedin, Marxists, Maoists, and any liberal and socialist groups I could find. Oh, they cried, telling sob stories about how they marched through the streets to bring the Ayatollah to power, but they lost sight of how the Ayatollah really took power! It wasn’t because of their help; it was because of Allah! They betrayed themselves with their own testimony.”
