Iranian MPs slam Rouhani for statements on ‘infallible imams’

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani. (AFP)

January 19, 2018

Members of the Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly have conveyed a message to President Hassan Rouhani after he said anyone can be criticized at any time, even when Imam Mahdi, the last of the Twelve imams, appears, Iranian media outlets have reported.

The semi-official Mehr news agency said 21 MPs submitted a notification to Rouhani at the end of the assembly’s public session on Tuesday regarding his statements on “the infallible imams.”

Ahmad Salek, the head of the assembly’s cultural affairs committee, said he and other MPs said in their notification to the president that “amid the current circumstances of economic recession, you must be taking serious measures to resolve water, unemployment, poverty and national production problems and confront recent American sanctions instead of criticizing infallible imams.”

Rouhani has frequently made statements on the right to criticize others, particularly during the past few weeks which witnessed protests across Iran.

Iranians believe in the Twelver Shiite sect that think that the twelve imams are successors of Prophet Mohammed and the last of them, i.e. Imam Mahdi, will appear when doomsday nears. The ruling elite in Tehran believes the supreme guide is the imam’s deputy until he appears.

Al Arabiya