http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0811/shiite_obama_1128.jpg
Undeterred, some Shi'ite scholars trawled through ancient texts to find proof and came up with increasingly far-fetched theories linking the rise of Obama to important Shi'ite figures like the Imam Ali. Some pointed to a prophecy sometimes attributed to Ali that the arrival of the Mahdi — a messiah-like figure who, Shi'ites believe, will ultimately defeat evil — will be presaged by the appearance of a messenger, a tall black man who will rule the West. Others read meaning into Obama's name. In Persian, O-ba-ma means "He's with us," and Barack Hussein can loosely be translated as "blessings of Hussein," an allusion to Ali's son, another imam revered by the Shi'ites. Obama's strenuous denials made no difference to these theorists: they simply reasoned that he must be practicing al-Taqqiya, or dissimulation; Shi'ite jurists say believers may conceal their faith from infidels in order to protect themselves from harm.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1863363,00.html?xid=rss-world
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