Chasing the apocalypse: Radical Shiite clerics on American soil preach prophetic showdown with US

MANASSAS, Va. – FIRST ON FOX: For many, the war with Iran — and the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — might seem like the climactic end to a long, brutal reign of terror by the theological clerics who have run the country since 1979.

But a Fox News Digital investigation reveals that, for certain hardline Shiite ideologues, including in the U.S., this is not an ending but a prophetic showdown that will usher in the arrival of the “Mahdi,” a messiah, according to Islamic eschatology, or the theology of end times.

In this prophecy, Mahdi will emerge to battle Dajjal, the Islamic equivalent of the Antichrist, in a final battle of Armageddon. For many of these ideologues, President Donald Trump is Dajjal.

At a recent Friday sermon at a local Shiite mosque in northern Virginia, an imam closed prayer with an earnest plea, before war broke out in Iran: “May Allah destroy all the nonbelievers – or kafiroon or munafiqoon,” he said, using Arabic words that refer to “nonbelievers” and “hypocrites.”

He asked for this victory “before the arrival of Imam Mahdi.”

Fox News Digital observed the sermon and also witnessed a special table of honor in the middle of the mosque’s main prayer hall, featuring framed photos of Khamenei embracing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah, also killed by Israel for orchestrating terrorist attacks.

In June 2025, a northern Virginia mosque co-organizes a White House protest with far-left groups backing the Iranian regime; a demonstrator flashes an apocalyptic “Mahdi” flag. (Asra Q. Nomani/Fox News Digital)

The Friday service at the Manassas Mosque reveals a theological dynamic that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned about in early February, noting that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s leaders are guided not merely by geopolitics and national security considerations, but by “pure theology.”

“We have to understand that Iran ultimately is governed, and its decisions are governed by Shiite clerics — radical Shiite clerics — who make policy decisions on the basis of pure theology,” Rubio said.

In its investigation, Fox News Digital conducted a digital analysis of hours of sermons and scores of pages of pro-regime protest slogans, messaging and social media posts, using large-language models, and found clerics, community leaders and media platforms in the U.S. framing tensions with Iran in explicitly apocalyptic terms rooted in eschatology, or Islamist end-times theology.

The investigation found that precepts shaping Tehran’s worldview, from its clerics to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are also being preached on American soil by proxies for Iran’s propaganda.

From the mosque in northern Virginia to religious institutions in Michigan and Texas, clerics aligned with the Islamic Republic are advancing a doomsday interpretation of faith that casts geopolitical and military confrontation with the U.S. as part of a prophetic destiny tied to the return of the Mahdi.

READ MORE HERE