As the military confrontation between the US and Iran grinds on, a specific rumor has begun taking hold in both Iran and Pakistan: that the war itself is the mechanism that will summon the Mahdi, the messianic figure of broader Islamic end-times belief, back to earth to defeat America.

The same underlying rumor, that this war is building toward a divinely orchestrated climax rather than a negotiated or militarily decided end, is now circulating through two entirely different transmission belts in two different countries at the same time.