2) But he barely scratches the surface of those prophecies, nor their relevance to the current jihad.
3) As I do of so many others, I disapprove of Trofimov's translating "the Dajjal" as "the AntiChrist" as well as ignoring the growing popularity of an allegorical interpretation of the terms "Dajjal" and "Mahdi."
4) By so doing he ignores the fact that the jihadists come to the conclusion that Western Civilization is itself the Dajjal, and their belief that the prophesied time when Muslims will wipe all wipe all non-Muslims off the face of the earth to be near at hand.
For more information on Muslim End-Time beliefs, see my FR Homepage and Links page.
But the remaining third will triumph in battle, seizing all Christian cities of the Christian world with the cries of 'Allah Akbar'.... After this the Jews will be slaughtered just like the Christians had been and the hour of redemption will finally sound.
Here is a short excerpt from my FR Homepage:
Okay, I'm going to try to summarize in general how it is that Western Civilization is the Dajjal, for those imams who read Dajjal as a metaphor, and not a literal individual person. This is cobbled together from a number of sources I've read. (And I don't know Arabic, Persian, or Urdu, so my sources are from the tiny fraction of Dajjal literature in English.)
a) The word "Dajjal" literally translates as "Deceiver."
b) From the Muslim, Qur'anic point of view, Jesus was a prophet of Allah, who taught that Allah is the One Undifferentiated God. Anyone who says that God is a Trinity of Three Persons, and that Jesus is one of those Divine Persons, is deceiving. If he says it because he believes it, he is both deceived and deceiving.
Hence, Christianity is itself an AntiChrist, because it is teaching the "opposite" of what Christ taught.
The evangelists and especially St. Paul "did not understand" who Jesus was and what he taught. And the texts of the Bible "have been corrupted" by deceivers over the centuries to support the dogma of the Trinity. Some imams might say the early Church was good and Islamic, but that corruption set in with Constantine and the Council of Nicaea. Regardless, to get the "truly infallible" account of Jesus, one must read the Qur'an.
But that’s not all.
c) The Dajjal of the hadith is not merely a deceiver -- he is the greatest menace ever to scourge the earth from Adam to the Last Trumpets.
d) At the time Muhammed was alive, the Christians were not the Dajjal. They might have been deceived and deceitful, but back then they generally kept to themselves in Europe and thereabouts. For those imams, this “explains” why in Muhammed’s hadith, he talks about the Dajjal as an evil yet to come.
e) The Christians didn’t start "menacing the whole planet" until the explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries.
f) So now we get into the history of colonization of the world by the European Christian powers, the exploitation of nonwhite races throughout the world, slavery, the pillaging of the world’s land and natural resources by the conquering European nations, etc., etc., etc.
g) Meanwhile, with the Age of Enlightenment, European (and American) people are becoming more secular, agnostic, and atheistic (more levels of deceitfulness). With the progress of science and technology, they care more about external material things than about internal spiritual pursuits. With the rise of industrial capitalism, people and the environment are exploited on every level, and the West truly becomes a menace to the entire globe.
h) And let’s not forget the spread of Western Culture throughout the world. On the one hand you have musical instruments, immodestly dressed women, novels and films spreading sinful morality, etc.
On the other hand you have Christian missionaries converting people around the world, slandering Muhammed and the Qur’an, and working hand-in-hand with the governments and banks back in Europe and America.
i) I’ve been focusing on the Christianity of the West, but my Jewish friends should not feel left out. That’s where the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” comes in. The Trinitarian Christians may be the figurehead Deceivers menacing the globe, but behind the scenes they themselves are being led around by a secret council of Jewish planners and financiers pulling the strings.
j) Q.E.D. The Dajjal is a metaphor for the West.
k) Now in the hadith Muhammed prophesies that the Mahdi will arise who will be the greatest Muslim since Muhammed. 'Isha (the Qur’an’s version of Jesus) will descend on a cloud and fight under the Mahdi in jihad. Together they will kill the Dajjal and spread Islam and shar’ia law throughout the planet.
l) Okay, now we’re going to get into some tricky interpretation here. Is the Mahdi an individual person, or a metaphor for a social movement of Muslims to oppose Western Civilization and everything for which it stands? If he’s an individual, will the Mahdi be the actual person to duel with the Dajjal, or might he be an individual who gets the ball rolling whereby the Dajjal’s inevitable demise is set in motion (*cough*BinLaden*cough*).
If the Dajjal is a metaphor, why shouldn’t the Mahdi be a metaphor?
But if a literal person, there are lots and lots of candidates in the past and present, and I’m sure there will be more in the future. An imam can pick his favorite one.
m) Now, what does “killing the Dajjal” mean? For some terrorist imams, that means chopping off the heads of every Westerner.
For the nicer, pacifist, we-are-in-the-end-times imams, that means the Mahdi will (“like Muhammed”) be a preacher and he will lead a "spiritual jihad" of converting the West to Islam. The hadith says that “the sun will rise in the west,” so this is interpreted to mean that the light of Islam will spread throughout the West.
n) After killing the Dajjal (whichever way), the Mahdi will govern the planet in perfect peace, justice and prosperity. Then the trumpets will sound, time will end, and the Day of Judgment will arrive. Allah will judge all souls (well, except for the prophets and martyrs since they are already in Paradise) and they will go to Paradise or Hell for all eternity.
o) I’ve dealt with the Dajjal as a metaphor for Western Civilization. For a more literal treatment of the Dajjal as a coming future individual person who will use the Western nations, the UN, the IMF, etc. as his power base, revise the scenario accordingly.
BTW, when thought of as an individual, many imams say he will be Jewish, although no hadith says this.
__________
I myself am an amillennialist. I do not believe we are living in the End Times, whether by this prophecy or that prophecy. I don’t particularly mind if someone does choose to believe in millennialism, unless that person starts using that as an excuse to attack my countrymen. At which point I take it as my duty to alert my fellow countrymen and our allies as to how millennial beliefs are a factor in the attacks.
Thanks Dajjal.
echo
I have a hunch.
Where to begin...
Paul didn't understand Jesus?
What?
You typed that with a straight face?
Most of the NT is Pauline and you typed that?
Now who was that heretic who cut out all of Paul's writings?
Let me think....
Further, as Joel makes quite clear, the Bible, both OT and NT is Israel-centric, not Western-centric.
Because of our Western cultural views some try and put Western ideas into prophecy by jumping through allegorical leaps of symbolism.
The Bible is more clear than all the allegorical symbolism.
pardon me, but your arguments are weak, substantiated by more extra-bibilicl literature than Biblical, you use too much allegory to try and put the US into the Bible where the Bible does not mentions the US. You would make a good muslim.