Bahrain Mirror: Bahraini citizens denounced the insulting and derogatory remarks made by the Syrian Assistant Professor in the Arabic Language Department at the University of Bahrain, Dr. Munther Al-Ayashi, against the twelfth Imam of Muslim Shiites.

"That old gray-haired man is still in his vault and in order to rush his emergence, they kill millions of people",  wrote Al-Ayashi on his Facebook page on September 29, 2017, referring to Mohammed bin Al-Hassan Al-Mahdi, who is believed by Shiites to be the twelfth and final Imam, whose absence began in the fourth century AH.

Al-Bilad newspaper, owned by the Prime Minister, apologized to its readers on July 25, 2017 after one of its columnists used similar expressions against the Shi'ite imam. Tariq Al-Amer wrote at the time: "The Lord of Time (Imam Mahdi) took this exceptional model of democracy, and disappeared inside the vault, since centuries ago this has nestled in the mind of Al-Wefaq Secretary-General", which was deemed an attack on the beliefs of the Shiite community.

In another article, Al-Ayashi attempted to divert attention from his first article by referring to the novel Notes from Underground by the famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. However, this apparently was not convincing to many who saw in his article an expression of clear contempt for the belief in Imam Mahdi adopted by the Shiites, who make up the majority of the country's population.
This is revealed in the comments on his article which are still published on his personal page.
A man named Dahmen Kakoubi commented: "There are Jews who are rushing the Antichrist so they also kill, as the Shiites in their faith resemble the Jews."

Notes from Underground presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg, which is hard to link to his first article. Al-Ayashi's position is consistent with his political views of the crisis in his home country Syria as he supports the armed rebellion against Alawite minority rule.

In response, the following was broadcasted on social media outlets: "How does the University of Bahrain allow the existence of extremists inciting violence and hatred within its educational cadres?" People further called on "the administration and concerned parties in the state to take legal measures to protect society from extremism and its supporters."

Arabic Version