Dajjal (Anti-Christ), the Qur’an and the Beginning of History
The Beginning, the End, and Dajjal
The main events that occur in our subject of the advent of al-Masih al-Dajjal, or Dajjal, the false Messiah (some refer to him as the Anti-Christ), and the return of Nabi Isa, i.e., Jesus the true Messiah ʿalayhi as-salām, are both located at the end of history. Muslims and Christians are the only two people among mankind who believe in these two events as a matter of religious faith. As a consequence, both Muslims and Christians must seek to determine whether these End-time events are in any way connected with events which may have occurred at the beginning of history.
Muslims can embark on that effort with confidence of positive results since Prophet Muhammad ṣallā -llāhu taʿālā ʿalayhī wa-sallam declared that “every Prophet before him (and he is the last of them all) warned his people about Dajjal, or the Anti-Christ”. He even went on to make it quite clear that he included the Prophets who were located at the beginning of history. He did so when he made specific mention of Nabi Nuh, i.e., Noah ʿalayhi as-salām, in that connection:
Abdullah ibn 'Umar said: . . . . The Messenger of Allah then stood up in front of the people, praised Allah with words worthy of Him and then he mentioned Dajjal and said: I warn you about him, and there is no prophet who has not warned his people about him. Noah warned his people about him . . . (Sahih Bukhari)
If every Prophet warned his people about Dajjal, it follows that there must be information about him, or connected to him, at the beginning of history. Let us therefore turn to the first pages of history in an effort to understand a most momentous event located close to the end of history and without which there would be no Dajjal.
If there had been no Jewish rejection of Jesus, the son of the Virgin Mary, as the promised Messiah, no demand for his crucifixion, and no boasting when they saw him crucified before their very eyes, there would have been no need for an advent of a false Messiah or Anti-Christ prior to a return of the true Messiah, or of a world-order of Gog and Magog to work for the Anti-Christ to assist him in realizing his mission, and no return of the true Messiah, at the end of history.
Since the return of the true Messiah, and the advent of a false Messiah prior to that miraculous return, are located at the very heart of the end of history, the implication for Christians and for Muslims, i.e., the two people who believe that Jesus will one day return, is that the dramatic conclusion of the historical process itself cannot be explained unless we can locate the explanation for the Jewish rejection of Jesus ʿalayhi as-salām. Our view is that the main reasons for that rejection are located in the beginning of history—hence the need for us to address this subject.
Jesus ʿalayhi as-salām was born into an Israelite community, and hence belonged to a people who claimed, and still claim to this day, that they are a special people with the Lord-God who chose them from amongst all of mankind and conferred upon them a special status with Himself. They were expecting a Messiah who was promised to them by the Lord-God, and who when he came, would restore the golden age when Jews ruled the world. When Jesus claimed to be that Messiah, and it was well-known that he was born to a mother who was not married, they rejected his claim to be the Messiah on the basis of their charge that he was a ‘bastard’ child. They were also very angry when they saw him performing miracles as a boy despite his alleged ‘bastard’ status; for example he took mud, shaped it in the form of birds, blew into them, and, by Allah’s leave, they became living birds (Qur’an, Ale ‘Imran, 3:49). But they were also very angry with him for other reasons. The Qur’an has consistently accused them of having corrupted Divine revelation by changing and rewriting the word of the One God. It has identified, for example, a change which made Halal, i.e., permissible, what Allah had made Haram, i.e., prohibited. They took Riba or usury, even though they had been prohibited from doing so (Qur’an, al-Nisa’, 4:161).
It was also a scriptural crime for them to claim, arrogantly so, that they are the chosen people of the Lord-God to the exclusion of the rest of mankind, and hence no gentile could ever be the equal of even the lowest of the Jews. They do not believe that they will be judged individually on Judgment Day, but rather believe in their unique collective judgment as a people (all others being judged individually), and that heaven is reserved for them.
Here is what the Torah has to say concerning their status as a chosen people:
“For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and God has chosen you to be His treasured people from all the nations that are on the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy, 14:2)
“Now therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from all the peoples, for all the earth is mine.” (Exodus, 19:5)
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.” (Genesis, 17:7)
“And you shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a Holy nation.” (Exodus, 19:6)
“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your ancestors.” (Deuteronomy, 7:7–8)
“You only have I singled out of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities.” (Amos, 3:2)
It is quite strange and, indeed, mysterious, that modern western civilization emerged in history with unprecedented power, and then went on a rampage of oppression around the world, subjugating untold millions to western colonial and imperial rule while raising the same claim to superiority over the non-European peoples of the world. They also used this same claim to justify western slavery over Africans. The outstanding West Indian scholar and politician, Dr. Eric E. Williams, has documented and exposed the western slavemaster’s claim to racial superiority in his masterly-written book entitled ‘British Historians and the West Indies’ (Andre Deutsch, London. 1966).
It was because Jesus challenged this Jewish belief that they firmly and vehemently rejected him as the promised Messiah, and demanded his execution by crucifixion. When they saw him crucified before their very eyes, it conclusively validated their rejection of his claim to be the true Messiah since the Torah itself had declared that “anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse (Deuteronomy, 21:22–23). Since he was the “cursed of the Lord-God” it followed logically that he could not have been the Messiah.
If history is to end with a validation of the Jewish claim to Truth, and if that Truth recognizes the Jews as God’s chosen people, chosen eternally and unconditionally to the exclusion of all of mankind, then this astonishing and ethically questionable supposedly Divine preference must find support in the beginning of history. If it has no support in the beginning of history, then this claim to truth must be questioned! If the Jewish claim to truth is to be validated, then history must end with the advent of a Messiah other than Jesus ʿalayhi as-salām since they rejected him as the Messiah.
