The Islamic Antichrist (12 page)

CONCLUSION

Muslims are very fond of using Jesus as an evangelistic tool among Christians. Numerous Muslim books extol the greatness of Jesus and express a deep love for Him. One Muslim Web site even proclaims that “Jesus led me to Islam.” Muslims use Jesus as a lure to draw Christians in, in order to convince them of the truth of Islam. But the advertised Jesus of Islam differs greatly from the Muslim Jesus, who comes to
reveal his true identity as the most radical of fundamentalist Muslims. The Jesus who returns in the Muslim tradition makes Osama Bin Laden look like a novice. He is pictured as coming to establish Islamic law across the face of the planet and legalize the execution of anyone who refuses to convert to Islam. He is pictured as leading the army that will slaughter tens of thousands of Jews said to follow the Dajjal. If ever such a person existed who could rightly be described as a “beast,” then surely the Muslim Jesus is such a man.

Muslims await a man who will claim to be Jesus Christ. He would be presented as a lamb. If such a man ever exists, he will claim, according to Islamic tradition, that he has been alive in heaven for the past two thousand years, waiting to return to complete his life and accomplish his mission on the earth. Such a man would be a liar—a true student of his master, the father of lies. He would come to fulfill what the Bible expresses to be the chief boiling desires of Satan: to either deceive Christians and Jews—indeed the entire earth—into worshipping him, or to slaughter them. In the Bible, we see that it is for these very purposes that Satan will empower his False Prophet. The biblical description of the False Prophet and the Islamic description of the Muslim Jesus, on all the essential points, are identical.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DAJJAL: ISLAM’S ANTICHRIST

T
he third primary character
that dominates Islamic eschatology is a man whose full title is Al-Maseeh (the Messiah) Ad-Dajjal, (the Liar/Deceiver). Usually just referred to as the Dajjal, he is a bizarre character whose description and story seem far more fantastic than that of either the Mahdi or the Muslim Jesus. Numerous hadiths contain descriptions of the Dajjal. Here we will just touch on the most common of these traditions to give an overview of just who this mysterious and strange person is.

THE GREAT DECEIVER

The Dajjal is described as a deceiver who will have miraculous powers and who will temporarily hold power over the whole earth:

The Prophet was warning us that in the last days there would be someone who would deceive all of humanity. The Dajjal will possess power over this world. Thus, Muslims must be careful not to have the love of the world in their hearts so they won’t leave their religion and follow him. He will be able to heal the sick by wiping his hand on them, like Jesus did, but with this deceit the Dajjal will lead people down the path to hell. Thus the Dajjal is the false Messiah, or Anti-Christ [Massih ad-Dajjal]. He will pretend to be the Messiah, and deceive people by showing them amazing powers.
¹

BLIND IN ONE EYE

Possibly the most frequently quoted reference to the Dajjal is that he is blind in one eye. The hadiths, however, are contradictory regarding which eye is blind:

Allah’s Messenger made a mention of Dajjal in the presence of the people and said: Allah is not one-eyed and behold that Dajjal is
blind of the right eye
and his eye would be like a floating grape.
²

Allah’s Messenger said: Dajjal is
blind of left eye
with thick hair and there would be a garden and fire with him and his fire would be a garden and his garden would be fire.
³

INFIDEL

The Dajjal is sometimes said to have the word “infidel” (
kaafir
) written between his eyes, possibly on his forehead, but this word will be perceptible only to true Muslims and no one else:

Allah’s Messenger said: Dajjal is blind of one eye and there is written between his eyes the word “
kaafir
” [unbeliever/infidel]. He then spelled the word as k. f. r., which every Muslim would be able to read.
⁴

Very important is that this word “
kaafir
” will be readable only by the believer, literate or illiterate. Non-believer: let him be educated from “Oxford” or “Harvard” will not be able to read it.
⁵

A FALSE MIRACLE WORKER

Sheikh Kabbani describes some of the Dajjal’s miraculous powers:

The Dajjal will have powers of the devil. He will terrorize the Muslims into following him, converting them into unbelief. He will conceal the truth and bring forth falsehood. The prophet said that the Dajjal will have the power to show the image of one’s dead ancestors on his hand, like a television screen. The relative will say, “Oh my son! This man is correct. I am in Paradise because I was good and I believed in him.” In reality that relative is in hell. If the relative says, “Believe in this man, I am in hell because I didn’t believe,” one must say to the Dajjal, “No, he is in Paradise. This is false.”
⁶

The Prophet said: the Dajjal will say to a Bedouin Arab, “What will you think if I bring your father and mother back to life for you? Will you bear witness that I am your lord? The Bedouin will say, “Yes.” So two devils will assume the appearance of his father and mother, and say, “O my son, follow him for he is your lord…”
⁷

THE DAJJAL WILL CLAIM TO BE JESUS CHRIST AND WILL
CLAIM TO BE DIVINE

This tradition shows that the Dajjal’s deceptive signs will lead people to believe that the Dajjal is actually their “lord.” Muslim scholars universally have concluded that the Dajjal will claim to be divine. According to the very well known Muslim scholar Abu Ameenah Bilal Phillips, the Dajjal “will claim to be God.”
⁸

While there are no specific traditions that state such directly, as a result of the fact that the Dajjal is, according to Islamic tradition, the false Jewish Messiah who claims to be God, most Muslims have deduced that the Dajjal will thus claim to be Jesus Christ by name.

THE DAJJAL AND HIS MAGIC MULE

Muslim scholar Muhammad Ali ibn Zubair Ali says of the Dajjal, “He will travel at great speeds and his means of conveyance will be a giant mule…. He will travel the entire world.”
⁹
As strange as this seems, it also bears a faint resemblance to Jesus the Messiah, who also rode a donkey as He entered Jerusalem during the final week of His ministry.

CITIES OF REFUGE

It is said that there are three cities that the Dajjal may not enter; Mecca, Medina, and Damascus. Muslims are encouraged to seek refuge from the Dajjal in one of these three cities.

The Prophet said, “Ad-Dajjal will come to Medina and find the angels guarding it. So Allah willing, neither Ad-Dajjal nor plague will be able to come near it.”
¹⁰

The coming of the Antichrist [Dajjal] must occur in the Last Days. This dreadful event is approaching, and in that time only three cities will be safe: Makka, Madina, and Sham [Damascus]. If anyone wants safety in that time he will have to run to one of these three cities.
¹¹

Apart from these three cities, it is said that the Dajjal will enter every single city, town, and village in the world to test and possibly deceive every human alive.
¹²

A SURA OF PROTECTION

Muslims believe that if they memorize a particular portion of the Qur’an that they will be protected from the Dajjal. It is something like a verbal amulet that protects one from the powers of evil.

If the Dajjal comes upon someone who has memorized the first ten verses of
Surat al Kahf
[Chapter of the Cow] he cannot harm him. And whoever memorizes the last verses of
Surat al-Kahf
will have light on the day of Judgement.
¹³

HE WILL BE JEWISH AND WILL BE FOLLOWED BY JEWS AND WOMEN

Based on various Islamic traditions, Muslims believe that the Dajjal will be Jewish. The title of a book by Muslim author Matloob Ahmed Qasmi,
Emergence of the Dajjal, the Jewish King
, couldn’t make this point more clearly. Imam Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi of the Palestinian Authority articulated the Islamic
perspective regarding the expectation of the Jewish people quite well in one of his sermons:

The Jews await the false Jewish messiah, while we await with Allah’s help…the Mahdi and Jesus, peace be upon him. Jesus’ pure hands will murder the false Jewish messiah. Where? In the city of Lod, in Palestine. Palestine will be, as it was in the past, a graveyard for the invaders.
¹⁴

Christian Arab scholar Samuel Shahid, in his scholarly study of Islamic eschatology, says of the Dajjal that he will be “the embodiment of the Jewish hope and longing. The bulk of his army is recruited from the Jews.”
¹⁵

As mentioned in the last chapter, the followers of the Dajjal will primarily consist of Jews and women. It is mentioned that women are very ignorant and easily misled. Veliankode states, “Meanwhile, women will also fall to the deviant line of the Antichrist because of their unawareness and ignorance of Islam.”
¹⁶

SLAIN BY THE MUSLIM JESUS

As mentioned in the last chapter, the Muslim Jesus will kill the Dajjal and his followers.

Allah’s Messenger said: …the time of prayer shall come and then Jesus son of Mary would descend and would lead them in prayer. When the enemy of Allah [Dajjal] would see him…Allah would kill them by his [Jesus’] hand and he would show them their blood on his lance [the lance of Jesus Christ].
¹⁷

CHAPTER NINE

COMPARING THE BIBLICAL JESUS AND THE DAJJAL

T
he third amazing parallel
between biblical eschatology and Islamic eschatology is the person of the Dajjal, the Islamic Antichrist figure. Despite all of the wild and fantastic descriptions of the Dajjal, if we boil down the Muslim belief regarding the Dajjal to its simplest and most important terms, we basically have a man who will claim to be divine and will claim to be Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah. He will defend Israel against the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus and he will deceive many people into leaving Islam.

While I certainly do not believe that there will ever come a figure into the world as described in the Islamic traditions—a great deceiver, blind in one eye, flying around the earth on some form of giant mule—there will come Jesus (the real one), who will in many very crucial ways fulfill the Muslim expectations of the Dajjal.

THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST

The real Jesus, however, will indeed come as a divine defender of Israel and her people as well as Israel’s spiritual children, the Christians. If the Islamic prophecies are indeed intertwined with the unfolding of biblical prophecy, then we can see that part of Satan’s strategy is that when the real Jesus returns there will
already
be a worldwide religious leader claiming to be Jesus, namely the False Prophet. If this were the case, then Muslims worldwide would accuse the real Jesus of being the
Dajjal, the Muslim Antichrist/Great Deceiver. Muslims would be particularly convinced of this because the surviving Jews of the earth will acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. At least six hundred years before Islam ever existed, the Jewish prophets and apostles described the event of Jesus returning to Israel, defeating its enemies, and finally gaining full acceptance among the Jewish people: