According to Dr. Timothy Furnish, while many Muslims in the Islamic Republic of Iran prepare for the return of the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam, many in the international community worry that Islamic extremists will use the acquisition of nuclear bombs or other weapons of mass destruction to "hot-wire the apocalypse." Dr. Furnish holds a Ph.D for Islamic history and is a leading expert on Muslim eschatology. He suggests that perhaps Mahdism is really being utilized as a tool to summon the extra-Shi`i Islamic world to join Tehran in its bid for Islamic world leadership. He will offer his insights on this timely topic followed by a panel discussion with EPPC Senior Fellow and former Senator Rick Santorum, Professor Cynthia Ayers of the U.S. Army War College, and Dr. Michael Ledeen, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Dr. Timothy Furnish is a "recovering" college professor and current writer, researcher and analyst specializing in Islamic history, sects, eschatology, ideology and Mahdism. He learned Arabic while in the U.S. Army and studied Farsi, Turkish and Ottoman while a doctoral student at Ohio State University. His first book was Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden and his second, due out in 2010, is The Caliphate: Threat or Opportunity? He also maintains a website dedicated to covering Mahdism and Muslim eschatology: mahdiwatch.org.

Prof. Cynthia Ayers is currently the National Security Agency's Visiting Professor to the U.S. Army War College. She has held positions within the intelligence community for 37 years. Her areas of professional experience and academic interest center on strategic intelligence, counterterrorism, and cyber-warfare. Her most recent assignment prior to her arrival at the U.S. Army War College was as a National Security Agency Representative to the DCI's Counterterrorism Center.

Dr. Michael Ledeen is a Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is also a contributing editor atNational Review Online. Previously, he served as a consultant to the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Defense Department. He has also served as a special adviser to the Secretary of State. He holds a Ph.D. in modern European history and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, and has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rome.

To register for this event, please email events@eppc.org.