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[ by Charles Cameron — others will know more about the context here than I do, but this video deserves to be seen alongside the “Black banners” Mahdist example ]
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Here’s the other “end times” video that Tamerlan Tsarnaev liked on FaceBook, and I think if you put the two of them together, you get the sense that he found quasi-prophetic doomish videos appealing… without necessarily subscribing in detail to either the Madhism of the first or the Icke-ness of this one… there’s even an Aleister Crowley ref!

Vinnie Paz – End Of Days Ft. Block Mccloud MUSIC VIDEO ORIGINAL! (fan made)

I’ve posted the lyrics to End of Days below.

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Hey, I’m mostly Bach, Handel, Purcell, Byrd, Gregorian, I’m also Dylan, Joni, I’m almost seventy old, and I claim no knowledge of rap, so…

… knowing that the Wikipedia is not the most academically credible source, and being an utter layperson in these matters, here are a couple of paragraphs from their coverage of Vinnie Paz. with all appropriate caveats:

Religion

Vinnie was raised a Roman Catholic just like the majority of the people in southern Philadelphia. Although his family practiced Catholicism, Vinnie always felt disconnected from the religion. In high school, a good friend of his was Muslim, and he frequented this friend’s household. This particular friend’s father began teaching Paz about the Qu’ran. As an adult he gradually converted to Islam and currently still is a Muslim. In an interview with Jason Goss, Paz stated; “Growing up yeah, I’m Italian and from Philly, so obviously my family is Roman Catholic. Religion and spirituality are a strange thing, ya know? Most people just grow up and accept the propaganda that their parents pushed on them. Christian families produce Christian kids, Jewish families produce Jewish kids, and so on. Not many people break that mold. I just never felt any connection with Catholicism, or Christianity in general. I spent a lot of time in high school at my homeboy Arif’s crib, and he came from a Muslim family. I learned a lot there from his family and I got interested in Islam through them.”

Conspiracy theories

Jedi Mind Tricks and specifically Vinnie Paz are known for rapping about many different conspiracy theories. Most are chronicled in Paz’s song “End of Days” from his first solo album. The song features speech clips from famous conspiracy theorist David Icke. In this particular song, Paz raps about mostly conspiracy theories within the United States government. For instance he mentions that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers was an inside job. He also introduces listeners to a place in California called Bohemian Grove, where world leaders and other influential men meet to discuss things that for the most part remain a mystery. Most of these conspiracy theories stem from the beliefs of a New World Order and the Illuminati.

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I suppose it bears saying that end times and conspiracist theories alike can become established explanations of current reality in some minds, but that there are very likely a whole lot of others who find them titillating, tasty, amusing, or just crazy enough to irritate the neighbors.

They merit study, because they can show us some of the undercurrents of the times we live in that we might otherwise miss. They are instances of a style of thinking that clearly has its own motivations with little regard for the particulars invoked, and are often self-contradictory amalgams in terms of those details. And yet specific instances can also be significant indicators of passionately held individual beliefs.

Cavete a canibus.

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Lyrics: End of Days:

The greatest form of control is when you think you’re free when you’re being fundamentally manipulated and dictated to. One form of dictatorship is being in a prison cell and you can see the bars and touch them. The other one is sitting in a prison cell but you can’t see the bars but you think you’re free.

What the human race is suffering from is mass hypnosis. We are being hypnotized by people like this: newsreaders, politicians, teachers, lecturers. We are in a country and in a world that is being run by unbelievably sick people. The chasm between what we’re told is going on and what is really going on is absolutely enormous.

[Chorus: Block McCloud]

It’s like we all know what’s going down
But no one’s saying shit, what happened to the home of the brave?
These motherfuckers they’re controlling us now
But no one’s talking about it, made us proud to be slaves

And everybody’s just walking around
Head in the clouds, we won’t awake until we’re dead in the grave
By then it’s too late, we need to be ready to raise up
Welcome to the end of days

[Verse 1: Vinnie Paz]

Everybody is slave, only some are aware
That the government releasing poison in the air
That’s the reason I collect so many guns in my lair
I ain’t never caught slipping, never underprepared
Yeah, The Shaytan army, they just break it proudly
George Bush the grandson of Aleister Crowley
They want you to believe the lie that the enemy Saudi
The enemy ain’t Saudi, the enemy around me
There’s fluoride in the water but nobody know that
It’s also a prominent ingredient in Prozac (for real?)
How could any government bestow that?
A proud people who believe in political throwback
That’s not all that I’m here to present you
I know about the black pope in Solomon’s Temple
Yeah, about the Vatican assassins and how they will get you
And how they cloned Barack Hussein Obama in a test tube

[Chorus]

[Verse 2: Vinnie Paz]

Whoever built the pyramids had knowledge of electrical power
And you know that that’s the information that they suppress and devour
Who you think the motherfuckers that crashed in the tower?
Who you think that made it turn into ash in an hour?
The same ones that invaded Jerome
The ones that never told you about the skeletons on the moon
Yeah, the ones that poison all the food you consume
The ones that never told you about Mount Vesuvius Tomb
The Bird Flu is a lie, the Swine Flu is a lie
Why would that even come as a surprise?
Yeah, the Polio vaccine made you die
It caused cancer and it cost a lot of people their lives
Do y’all know about Bohemian Grove?
How the world leader sacrificing children in robes?
Lucifer is God in the public school system
I suggest you open up your ears and you listen

[Chorus]

[Outro]

The greatest hypnotist on the planet Earth is an oblong box in the corner in the room. It is constantly telling us what to believe is real. If you can persuade people that what they see with their eyes is what there is to see you’ve got them. Because they’ll laugh in your face of an explanation then which portrays the big picture of what’s happening… and they have

[ by Charles Cameron — the Jewish Afghans — part 2 of a series on two end times videos that Tamerlan Tsarnaev “liked” ]
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At this point, we are about a quarter of the way into the Mahdist video I was describing in the first part of this post, and you’d be well-advised to catch up to speed there if you want to follow along here… with the fascinating story of the Afghan children of Isaac.

At [03.16, 03.28 and 03.37] the story begins to unfold [transcripts below]:

The first of these reads:

The army of Imam Mahdi will consist people fro the region of (ancient) Khorasan. Then a question arises: who will give hin alliegance (who will be the majority in his army)? Will it be a certain race or will all the inhabitans of Khorasan give their alliegance to him?

The second:

Pity poor Taliqan (a region in Afghanistan) that at that place are treasures of Allah, but these are not of gold and silver but consist of people who have recognized Allah as they should have

Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir al-zaman, p.59

It is interesting to note that Harun Yahya quotes this same hadith under the heading “The Occupation of Afghanistan (1979)” and comments:

There is an indication that Afghanistan will be occupied during the Last Days. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan took place in 1979 (1400, according to the Islamic calendar).

The third is headed “Note” in red, and reads:

The word Taliqan not just mentions the Taliqan region of today only but it describes the whole of the area since in older times sometimes a name of small region describes the whole of the region for example the King of whole Afghanistan and many parts of Central Asia i.e. MAHMUD OF GHAZNI was known as the KING OF ZABUL (Persian Poet Firdausi always called him as SHAH-E_ZABUL in his famous poem “Shahnama Ferdausi”). Zabul was a small province but the whole area was known as ZABUL at that time. SO the word TALIQAN means the whole of the area of Khorasan and not just TALIQAN itself.

I have tried to copy the spelling and syntax of the original, which to my ear might betray a touch of the subcontinent — but may of course have introduced errors of my own, or those of some damnable auto-correct function.

To continue. There’s something decidedly educational going on here in this video – the first, I do believe, that I’ve seen footnoted in quite this way.

The next four text slides read [04.00, 04.10, 04.15 and 04.30]:

We now know that the army of Mahdi will come out of Khorasan with their black banners and as to the question earlier (will it be a certain race or will all the inhabitants of Khorasan give their alliegance to him?

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This answer is given to us when we read (the hadith in)
Saheeh Muslim Kitaab al-Fitan Hadith 2920

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Abu Huraira (RA) reported that the Prophet (SAW) said, you have heard about the city of which is in the land and the other is in the sea (Constantinople). They said, Allah’s Messenger, yes. Thereupon he said, The last hour would not come unless seventy thousand persons from BANI ISHAQ would attack it.

Ishaq/Isaac: son of brahim/Abraham, father of Yaqub/Jacob

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When they would land there, they will neither fight with weapons nor would shower arrows but would only say: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest,” that one side of it would fall. Thaur (narrator) said: I think that he said: The part by the side of the ocean. Then they would say for the second time: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest” that the second side would also fall, and they would say: “There is no god but Allah and Allah is the Greatest,” that the gates would be opened for them and they would enter therein and, they would be collecting spoils of war and distributing them amongst themselves that a noise would be heard and It would be said: Verily, Dajjal has come. And thus they would leave everything there and would turn to him.

And at this point, with pedagogical precision, there’s a numbered summary of what we’ve learned thus far [05.01]:

Then an Afghan appears in video [05.06 forward] —

— while what sounds to me liker a cultured British voice translates:

When I was young, and had no beard, my grandfather’s uncle died at the age of a hundred and fifteen. He used to say that we are the children of Israel. I am of the Musahem, the People of Moses.

Got that?

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And then things take another interesting turn. Our next screen-grab offers an introduction:

What follows is the “Jewish (Bible) scholar” — on camera —

saying [05.32]:

We are in a country that is supposedly dominated by Muslims, but not Muslims just any Muslims, Muslim fundamentalism, And yet, we come face to face with people that say, “We are Musahem – We are from the people of Moses”. Reuben, Gad, Ephraim, Shimon – four more tribes. So we’ve actually located nine of the tribes. Or, let me put it differently: we think we located nine of the tribes. If we haven’t located nine of the tribes, then it’s a very strange coincidence going on, that you have all these people, with Biblical names, with Biblical practices, with an Israelite memory, exactly where they should be according to the Biblical map.

I’m glad the next slide says, again, “And Allah knows best”. But then it segues into the Mahdi’s physical appearance, and again there’s a Jewish strand…

And Allah knows best
Now, let’s look at a hadith which explains Imam Mahdi’s appareance

Here [06.44] follows a long paragrapoh, which I’ve transcribed for easier reading:

The appearance of Imam Mahdi (according to AHadith) is that he has deep wheatish complexion, light stature, medium height,beautiful broad comlexion, long straight nose, eyebrows round like bow, big natural black eyes, very white front two teeth and with a spacing between the teeth, a black mole mark on the right cheek, face glowing like a shining star, a mark on shoulder like that of Prophet Muhammad (SAW),complexion like the Arabs and body like the Childern of Israel, slight stutter in the tongue due to which he hits his right hand on left thigh sometimes because of annoyance, will appear at the agae of 40 ,while praying to Allah he will expand his hands for prayers like birds expanding their wings, will be wearing Qutwani cloaks (the clothes of the Children of Israel), will resemble in character to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) but in appearance he will be different from Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

And this section closes with an illustration — again, presumably from Afghanistan — of what is meant by a Qutwani cloak [07.26]:

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I am going to take a break here, at the end of the section in which the people of Afghanistan, and indeed the Mahdi himself, are seen as having characteristics of the Children of Isaac.

In the third and, I hope final, section of this post, Jesus will make a stunning appearance, and attention will then turn back to Khorasan and the march of the black banners on Jerusalem… That final section of this post will, God willing, appear tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ll also post Tamerlan Tsarnaev end times videos II: a Vinnie Paz video, which deals briefly with a second “end times” song that Tsarnaev “liked” — this one a whirl of contemporary conspiracy theories with Shaytan at the helm…

[ by Charles Cameron — possibility of Mahdist belief or sympathies on the part of one of the Boston bombers surfaces, with some details of the relevant video ]
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Source: https://twitter.com/gregorydjohnsen/status/325264215025782788

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Having said that, here’s the explicitly Mahdist video that Tamerlan Tsarnaev liked on FaceBook — one of two “end times” videos as it happens, and worth viewing in context with the other.

The theme here of the black banners of Khorasan is one I have been writing about for years now, as the editors at NRO kindly noted yesterday.

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I’m not alone in noticing this video [1, 2, 3], but I may have more interest in it than many others, because I believe Mahdism — and “end times” excitement in general — is a volatile conceptual additive and should be handled with considerable caution.

In particular, I would note that the “black banners of Khorasan” ahadith, cited in the video, have been widely used in AQ recruitment as reported by ex-FBI agent Ali Soufan and Syed Saleem Shahzad in their respective books [1, 2], although the ahadith are of probable Abbasid origin as suggested by David Cook [Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature, Chapter 8, Apocalyptic Predictions concerning Afghanistan and the Taliban, pp. 172 ff.] — and indeed, I’d recently asked the tweeting American mujahid Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki (Omar Hammami):

to which he’d responded:

[ I started to tweet occasional theological questions to Abu M after he instructed his followers to read Zenpundit, here and more emphatically here — I believe the post he was specifically referring to was this one ]

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Okay.

This account of the Mahdist video would make a long post, and if you can watch the video and make out most of what it is saying in the title cards (intertitles) that form, along with the occasional voice over, the through-line of the movie, you won’t need most of the rest — I’m mostly going to offer transcriptions of those portions that aren’t too fuzzy for me to read.

Three things you might find worth noting, however, are:

the quotes from Imran Nazar Hosein, whom I’ve discussed before eg: 1, 2, 3, 4], starting in this section

the section on the supposedly Jewish origins of the Afghan people [which I discussed in some detail here], in part 2 of this post, and

the short clip from Mel Gibson‘s The Passion of the Christ which has been slipped into the video with dramatic effect, in part 3.

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For those of you who feel like following along — and there’s plenty of detail of interest — I’ve broken the thing into parts, and my account of the video begins here…

After the Bismillah:

… followed by a card proclaiming it to be the work of T.R.U.E.E. Productions [00.07], the video begins with the “black banner” itself [00.21], in this form:

This serves as the opening title of the video, which is presented on YouTube and a minute into the video with the title “The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags From Khorasan“. The banner fades slightly to show present-day horsemen, presumably from Afghanistan:

There are others — I’m thinking of Chris Anzalone and Aaron Zelin — who could tell you the origins of the various video clips and anasheed that are used throughout the video, but I’ll confine myself to the text cards and voice overs.

Over the last of the horsemen, the voice of Imran Nazar Hosein speaks [00.46]:

The prophet said, “When you see the black flags coming from the direction of Khorasan, go and join that army.” That army has already started its [march). They know it. And that’s why they demonize as a terrorist anyone, anyone who supports that army. They know it. And that’s why they demonize as a terrorist anyone, anyone who supports that army.

That’s the end of the Intro, after which the title in English appears [01.16]:

For a bit of flash and excitement, there’s a count-down [01.23 – 01.32] — we’re approaching zero hour, I’m guessing — and the first major text card shows up [01.38]. It is the first of several “notes”:

The caution exhibited here is interesting — someone doesn’t want to be caught out in an error by theologically more sophisticated viewers, hence the admission that some scholars view the black banners of Khorasan ahadith as weak… and the always welcome admission:

Allah knows best.

At [01.56] a hadith is introduced over black and white visuals of war by night:

I’ve magnified this one a little for easier reading [02.09]:

The citation in red is hard to make out, but I believe it references “Sunan Ibn Majah Hadith 971 Volume 3”.

The statement, “their weapon will be the weapon of Emaan (Faith)” is of interest, compare in the New Testament Ephesians 6.13-17 —