#253

A Persian Antichrist?

A Coming Messiah

According to some people, teachings about a messiah who will come and rescue his chosen people from dire times always crop up in, you guessed it, dire times. As such these people ascribe the belief in such messianic figures as a way to give hope to the hopeless masses. And they also label these beliefs as nothing more than made up stories and that they will amount to nothing as time and science prove them wrong. While we Christians hold to the same talk of a coming messiah we have to admit that we’re not alone. The question becomes are we part of the delusional crowd and do we have some competition from what is a somewhat crowded field of soon coming powerful figures that will take over the world at a key moment of time? I’m not going to answer that question, I’m just putting it out there to whet your appetite for the main course of this lesson and that is all about the opposite figure that is also talked about and that is the villain in the story, the Antichrist.

It's Chic To Know Who The Antichrist Will Be

Now that Iran is back in the news with the current war in Israel, so is the thinking that the son of perdition predicted in Biblical prophecy is also back in the news is going to come from the ranks of Islam. This isn’t a new teaching or belief, but with the advent of social media just about anybody can bring it up. And they are. I know I’ve done it and now I’m doing it again. Prominent teachers of prophecy are back in the news pointing out that the Bible’s Antichrist will be Islamic and that Muslims are already looking for him now. I’ve seen videos using the actual letters in Revelation 13 and comparing them to the Arabic letters seen on Hamas soldier’s foreheads to make the connection as well. I’m not going to lie, they make compelling arguments and there are some prophetic teachers in this bunch that I really like and respect. But are they right?

The Al-Masih ad-Dajjal

Interestingly while talk of the Antichrist being a Muslim, the Muslims believe their messiah will defeat the Antichrist just like we believe Jesus will defeat the same person. And if we study the talk of the Muslim Antichrist called Al-Masih ad-Dajjal which in Arabic means “the fraudulent Jesus” or “the lying Messiah,” we find that this false messiah will deceive the Jews because he will actually be Jewish as we read in this quote from the web site answering-islam.org:

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's 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

Samuel Shahid, a Christian Arab scholar 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.”

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 as such are easily misled. Veliankode states, “Meanwhile, women will also fall to the deviant line of the Antichrist because of their unawareness and ignorance of Islam.”

And now you know another reason why they want to wipe Israel off the map.

A Political Ploy

Even talk of this coming Muslim messiah wasn’t popular in Iran until the country was taken over by radical Muslims back in the 1970s. And it wasn’t really until the 2000s that the concept was used as a political strategy as we read from an article from pbs.org:

As for the political factor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, like all Shiites, venerated the Hidden Imam; at the same time, he was wary of the overexaltation of the Mahdi cult, which he rightly associated with the ultra-reactionary millennialist Hojjatiyeh Society. The rituals surrounding the Jamkaran mosque, the main loci of the veneration and celebration for cult followers, were generally kept low key while the ayatollah was still alive. All that changed with Khamenei. In tandem with the rise of new aspirants to power such as Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and his lay followers, as well as the forces loyal to the Revolutionary Guards, Khamenei sanctioned a major apotheosis of the Imam and his cult. Millions of people soon joined the movement.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the first to see how enormously useful the cult could be. As the mayor of Tehran, he asked the City Council to reconfigure the capital to accommodate the Imam's imminent coming. Once he became president, he repeatedly invoked the name of the great Imam and had his cabinet members visit the Jamkaran mosque at the outskirts of Qom and drop notes of allegiance in its famed well. Later, his government augmented budgetary allocations to the mosque-complex by millions of dollars while plans were discussed to build a direct rail link from Tehran to it.

In 2007, Iranian radio claimed that the mosque would soon be the third most important in the Muslim world -- presumably after Masjid'ul Haram and Masjid'ul Nabi and supplanting Masjid'ul Aqsa.

That last sentence jumped out at me because it mentioned the mosque in Jamkaran replacing the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Just pointing it out because it could explain how the Jewish Third Temple could be built.

The Muslim Jesus

Adding to the twists and turns of messiahs, the Muslim Antichrist will be defeated by the Jesus in Islam called Isa. We read how that happens in this quote from an article from wikipedia.org:

When the Mahdi reappears, he will appoint Isa (Jesus) as his representative. Isa would attack him and catch him at the gate of Ludd(present days' 'Lod' near Tel Aviv.) According to the narrations of Ali, when the Mahdi returns, he will lead the prayers and Isa will follow him. As soon as Dajjal sees Isa, Dajjal would melt like Lead. Ali mentions Dajjal's defeat in one of his sermons, saying that Dajjal will set out toward the Hijaz and Isa (Jesus) will intercept him at the passage of Harsha. ‘Isa will direct a horrible shout at him and strike him a decisive blow.

In other sources, this Muslim Jesus will do more than defeat the Muslim Antichrist. He will convert all Christians to Islam and kill all Jews as read in this article from the web site answering-islam.org:

It is crucial to understand that according to Islamic tradition and belief, when Jesus returns, he does not merely come to convert most Christians to Islam but to literally abolish Christianity entirely. This fact is understood when we analyze a very well-known, and oft-quoted tradition that refers to four specific things that Jesus will do when he returns. Jesus is said to:

Break crosses.

Kill all swine.

Abolish the jizyah tax (a Muslim tax on non-Muslims)

Kill the Muslim antichrist and his followers.

The Prophet said: There is no prophet between me and him, that is, Jesus. He will descent (sic) (to the earth)… He will break the cross, kill swine, and abolish jizyah. Allah will perish all religions except Islam.

The three actions of breaking “the cross”, killing pigs and abolishing the jizyah tax are based on the notion that Jesus will eliminate all other religions on the earth other than Islam. Shafi and Usmani explain that to “break the cross” means to “abolish worship of the cross”. Several Muslim friends that I’ve spoken with have expressed their understanding of this tradition: Jesus will break or remove all crosses from the rooftops and steeples of churches throughout the earth. This action will thus indicate that Jesus will be making a clear statement regarding his disapproval of the false notion that he was ever crucified on a cross. The killing of the swine is so that the “Christian belief of its lawfulness is belied.” The reason for abolishing the jizyah tax (the compulsory poll-tax that non-Muslims must pay in order to live in a Muslim land) is based on the idea that when Jesus returns, the jizyah tax will no longer be accepted. The only choice that Christians will have is to accept Islam or die.

A Jewish Antichrist And A Muslim Antichrist

So we have a Jewish messiah and a Jewish Antichrist. And we have a Muslim messiah and a Muslim Antichrist. If you are getting lost in all of this theological morass, get in line. However, knowing what you know now helps explain things from both sides of the proverbial aisle. And it explains to a point the conflict we see in the Israel war, at least from the terrorist side. They are fighting against the Jews because they’ve been taught the Jews will bring about the great enemy of Islam, Al-Masih ad-Dajjal so their fight is a just one, a holy one even. These current events do have a Biblical perspective after all, regardless of how social media portrays things. But more importantly, it affords us more ways to pray for the conflict, those involved in the conflict and the souls of those in the conflict. And it gives some insight into how we pray for all Muslims who are looking for a messiah just like we are. Let us intercede for them and ask that Jesus show Himself to them as the true messiah. As you can see, the layers of veils over their eyes are more complex than we know but those veils can be taken off if we pray earnestly and specifically for each one as Holy Spirit leads us.