In the Service of Islam
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THE GREATEST DANGERS TO THE WORLD OF ISLAM
THE HOLY QUR'AN and the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had both forewarned that towards the end of the long history of the world, certain mortal dangers to Islam and the Muslims would arise. Let us take up the Holy Qur'an first.
It is well-known that when the Holy Prophet appeared, the seat of opposition to him, but really to Islam, was the town of Makka. As it was the temporal leader of Arabia, so it became the leader of religious persecution, hostility and war on Islam and the Muslims. The Holy Qur'an, the Great Word of the Almighty Allah, said:
'And it is forbidden to the town, which we shall destroy, that they shall not return. Until when Gog and Magog are let loose and they will sally forth from every position of vantage' (21: 95-96).
The word Qaryah (town) is used here in the singular to denote greatness, prominence, uniqueness. Makka has been called, in another place in the Holy Qur'an, the 'Mother of Towns,' because it was the place where Adam and Eve lived, Adam building the first house for the remembrance of Allah at Makka ('Verily the first house of Allah built for mankind was at Makka'-Holy Qur'an 3:95), and Eve being buried at Jeddah (which word literally means the 'grandmother'-of nations, of course). What the Holy Qur'an says in the verses quoted above is that the opposition to Islam and the Muslims (which was represented by Makka) will be destroyed. It will not return until Gog and Magog (then held in invisible chains of Divine destiny as the Holy Prophet saw in a vision about them) will be let loose, and they will sally forth from every position of vantage.
Gog and Magog
That they are the nations of Europe is now well-known. It was not so known at all until Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib identified them. The common notion prevalent until his time was that they were some weird creatures. But an earlier reference to Gog and Magog in the Holy Qur'an (18:94-101), and verses 97-100 in Chapter 21, from which we quoted above, show that they are ordinary but powerful nations.
How Gog and Magog (the Western Christian nations) will revive dangerous hostility to Islam and the Muslims is prophesied later on in Chapter 61 of the Holy Qur'an, where, after it is stated that Jesus Christ made a categorical prophecy about the advent of the Holy Prophet of Islam, it is added that when the latter came to be known to the Christians,
(a) They called the clear arguments of the Holy Prophet a fraud.
(b) They forged a lie against Allah, when they called Islam a forgery and a lie.
(c) They will not stop at that, but they will want to 'blow out the light of Allah' with their mouths, i.e. with their hostile criticism and slander.
(d) But, far from allowing them to do it, Allah will bring to perfection His light, however much these ungrateful disbelievers may dislike it.
(e) In fact, He will make Islam prevail over other religions because it is the perfect religion (while others are incomplete, e.g. Jesus Christ himself said: 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth' -John 16 12-13) and because the Truth which was lost (when the other religions lost or interpolated their revealed books) is re-established in Islam, which is opposed by the other religions because they have become corrupted with shirk (polytheism).
The commentators of the Holy Qur'an had agreed long before the Promised Messiah appeared in the person of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib that the above-mentioned wonderful service to Islam would be performed by the Promised Messiah. The Holy Qur'an not only confirms it but says that he will form a Jamaat to be 'his helpers in the way of Allah,' by stating a few verses later:
'O you who believe, be the helpers of Allah, as Isa son of Mary said to his disciples, Who will be my helpers in the way of Allah?' (61:14).
In trying to understand this verse, the following facts may be borne in mind:
(i) That all prophets had called upon their people to be their 'helpers in the way of Allah.'
(ii) Those who responded to Jesus Christ were not exceptional. In fact they set some bad examples when one of them betrayed his Master for thirty pieces of silver, and his right-hand man Peter disowned and cursed him in his presence to escape being crucified with him.
(iii) Then why is Jesus Christ specially mentioned here out of all other prophets?
(iv) Because there was to be a second advent of Jesus Christ in the person of the Promised Messiah ('a leader from among Muslims' -Hadith), and the latter was to make the same call to the Muslims.
Those who responded to him, and did not falter, are the Lahore Ahmadiyya Jamaat. How well the Promised Messiah, single-handed, confronted the might, myriads, money and missionary zeal of the Christian nations attacking Islam will be shown in the next chapter. Here, we must continue with the theme of this chapter as to the identity of Gog, Magog and Dajjal. Before we turn to the Hadith, let us have a look at the Bible to see what it says about the identity of Gog and Magog:
'And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the Chief Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him: And say, Thus saith the Lord God, I am against thee, O Gog, the Chief Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal: and I will turn thee back and put hooks into thy jaws' (Ezekiel 38:1-4).
This interesting reference shows that:
(a) 'Gog' is the Russians (Rosh). Meshech (Moskoa) and Tubal are rivers in Russia, on the former of which is situated the Russian capital Moscow.
(B) The Russians are part of the land of Magog (Europe), the rest of the Europeans being Magog whether they are at present residing in Europe or have migrated to America.
(C) The Lord God is against the Russians (because they led the atheistic movement in the world of today) and they will be 'turned back, with hooks put into their jaws' by God.
It would be of interest here to quote Sir Winston Churchill, the world-famous Prime Minister of Great Britain and a historian of note. He was making a speech at the London Lord Mayor's banquet at the Guild Hall on Friday, 9th November 1951, on the occasion of the restoration of the effigies of Gog and Magog at the entrance to the Guild Hall. In the course of his speech, Sir Winston Churchill said:
'It seems that they (Gog and Magog) represent none too badly the present state of world politics. World politics, like the history of Gog and Magog, are very confused and much disputed. Still I think there is room for both of them.
On the one side is Gog and on the other is Magog. But be careful, my Lord Mayor, when you put them back, to keep them from colliding with each other, for if that happens, both Gog and Magog would be smashed to pieces, and we should all have to begin all over again-and begin from the bottom of the pit' (The Times, London, 10th November 1951).
If that was the world's most outstanding statesman and historian, the most outstanding Muslim poet and philosopher of the sub-continent (now India and Pakistan), Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, wrote about the present-day alignment of the Big Powers an Urdu couplet, which is translated as under:
'The forces of Gog and Magog have all become evident. Let the eye of the Muslim see the explanation of the verse of the Holy Qur'an.'
Dajjal (Anti-Christ)
We have already explained in Chapter 2 that the world-domination of the Western powers led to their world-wide campaign of the conversion of the subject races to Christianity in order to perpetuate their world-domination, and in this they met with no religious hurdles except in their confrontation with Islam, which they called 'anti-Christianity,' while they called other religions merely non-Christian religions. Even for political reasons the Islamic world, a solid block of countries extending from the North African shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific, was seen as a political danger in the form of 'Pan-Islamism.' Unfortunately, it was easy to divide and rule the Muslims. The Christians found it equally easy to undo the religious hold of Islam in the Muslim countries because of the wrong beliefs common among Muslims about Jesus Christ being physically alive in heaven, to come down and save Islam and the Muslims. The Christian missionaries exploited those beliefs to make the Muslims accept Jesus Christ as the Saviour now.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims fell for this deception. No wonder that the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) called the Christians Dajjal, which means the deceiver or the liar in matters of religion. He has also called them the Masih-ud-Dajjal because they lied about Jesus Christ that he was the Son of God, etc., or because they preached about him as the Messiah, as the Saviour of the world, while what they sought was the perpetuation of the world-domination of the Christian powers.
Whatever the explanation, the Christian all-out attack on the world of Islam was the gravest danger in its history. How correct the Holy Prophet of Islam was in describing the perilous situation of the world of Islam in the following words:
'From the creation of Adam to the Day of Resurrection there would be no greater danger than the Dajjal' (Mishkat, Chapter on Dajjal).
This warning Hadith, with slight variation of words, occurs again and again. And the danger was so grave that the Holy Prophet taught the Muslims a prayer to be said in the Muslim prayers five times a day which says:
'O Allah! I seek refuge in Thee from the trial of Masih-ud-Dajjall.'
That this grave danger would arise from the twin aspect of the Christian onslaught against the world of Islam is very evident from the Holy Prophet's advice to the Muslims that to save themselves from this grave danger they should recite the first ten verses of the Surah al-Kahf (Chapter 'The Cave') of the Holy Qur'an, which expose the falsehood of the doctrine of the Sonship of God, and the last ten verses of the same Surah which speak of the false glamour of the scientific and technological achievements of the Christians and their engrossment in the material life of this world, which will bring down Divine retribution on them.
Apart from this clear indication of the identity of the Dajjal, there are hundreds of other prophetic sayings of the great Prophet of Islam indicating the characteristics of the Dajjal, only some of which are reproduced below for the sake of brevity.
(1) 'Behold, he (Dajjal) is blind of one eye (specified in another Hadith as the right eye) and between his two eyes is written kafir' (Bukhari, 93:27).
The right eye stands for the man's eye which sees things spiritual, and the left eye of the Dajjal (which the Holy Prophet described as being shining like a star) is the eye for seeing things of this world. The writing kafir on the forehead of the Dajjal means that his disbelief would be evident.
(2) 'The believer will read that writing whether he can write or not, and whether he can read or not' (Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Vol. II, page 250),
i.e., Dajjal's disbelief in the One and True God will be self-evident.
(3) 'The Dajjal will appear in the East' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, Hadith No. 2988),
i.e., he will come out in his true colours in the East.
(4) 'The streams of the world and its fruits will be made subservient to him (Dajjal). So whoever will follow him, he will give him to eat and make him a disbeliever; and whoever will disobey him, he will deprive him of his provisions and stop his means of livelihood, (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2090).
(5) 'And with him will be mountains of bread, and people will be in difficulty except those who follow him' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2104).
(6) 'And he will pass through a wilderness and will say to it: Bring forth thy treasures. So its treasures will follow him as the bees follow their queen' (Mishkat, Chapter on Dajjal).
(7) 'He will come upon a nation and he will invite it (to follow him) and it will believe in him. So he swill command the sky and it will pour down rain, and he will command the earth and it will produce vegetationÉ Then he will come upon a nation and he will invite it (to follow him), and it will refuse; then it will be stricken with famine and nothing will remain in its hand of its wealth' (Mishkat, Chapter on Dajjal).
(8) 'With him will be mountains of bread and rivers of water' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, No. 2985).
(9) to
(15) A number of sayings of the Holy Prophet to the effect that with the Dajjal will be what he would call 'Paradise,' but it would be 'Hell,' and vice versa, and what he would call 'water' would be 'fire,' and vice versa.
(16) A part from those who would fall for the benefits of the Dajjal without knowing, the Holy Prophet spoke of others who would, knowing well of Dajjal's disbelief, accompany him so that they might eat his food and feed their cattle from his trees (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2092).
(17) 'He will appear on a white ass whose two ears will be forty yards apart' (Mishkat, Chapter on Dajjal).
(18) 'Between one leg of his ass and the other will be the distance of a day and night' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, No. 2998)
(The above two refer to the railway train, which was white to begin with, at least in the East.)
(19) 'We said: O Messenger of Allah, how will he travel in the earth? He said: As the cloud is carried by the wind' (Mishkat, Chapter on Dajjal).
(20) 'The earth will be rolled up for him; he will hold the cloud in his right hand and will over-reach the sun; the sea will be ankle-deep for him' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, No. 2998).
(21) 'He will be jumping about between the sky and the earth' (Abu Dawood).
(The above two prophecies relate to aerial and space travel.)
(22) 'And with him will be raised devils in the form of those that are dead of the fathers and brothers (of people)' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2065).
(23) 'And with him will be devils assuming the appearance of the dead, who will ask the living: Do you recognize me, I am thy father, thy brother, or some relation?' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, No. 2078).
(The above two prophecies relate to spiritualist seances.)
(24) 'The enemy of Allah, the Dajjal, will make its appearance, and with him will be an army of Jews and various kinds of other people' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2974).
(25) 'And the last of those that will go out with him will be women, so much so that a man will turn to his mother, and his daughter, and his sister and his aunt, and tie them fast lest they should go out with him (Dajjal)' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2116).
(26) 'And the women will assume the appearance of men and the men will assume the appearance of women' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2998).
(27) 'And he will cure the blind and the leper and will revive the dead' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2070).
(28) 'Beware! Most of the comrades and followers of the Dajjal will be the Jews and illegitimate children' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2998).
(29) 'Whoever hears about the Dajjal should keep away from him. By Allah! One will come to him, and he will think that he is a believer, but he will follow him (Dajjal) because of the doubts that he will raise in his mind' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2057).
(30) 'And there will be no part of the world left which he will not dominate except Makka and Madinah' (Kanz al-Ummal, No. 2028).
A breathtakingly true picture of the world-domination of the Christian powers in the nineteenth century of the Christian era!
We have had perforce to quote a number of the prophetic sayings of the Holy Prophet of Islam, not only to show what an amazing foresight of future events he was given by Allah, but also to make clear the identity of Gog, Magog and the Dajjal. Although the signs he gave are amazingly clear, yet, because the language of prophecy speaks in metaphors and people unfortunately take them literally, the universal impression among the Muslim Ulema and other Muslims was that Gog and Magog were some unimportant nations whose mention in the Holy Qur'an was only incidental, and that the Dajjal would be some strange creature, physically blind of one eye, with the word kafir literally inscribed on his forehead, riding an amazingly huge ass whose two legs will cover the span of the earth, and possessing superhuman powers.
The first man to identify them as the Christian powers and their missionaries was Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Sahib. This is a fact of history and record which cannot be denied (see his book Izala-e-Auham and other writings and speeches). And when he wrote about it people scoffed and ridiculed him and the idea. But in course of time they came to believe in the identity of Gog, Magog and Dajjal as spotted and proclaimed by Hazrat Mirza Sahib. It must be said now that the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had also prophesied:
'A person from among the believers would say, I will go up to this man (the Dajjal) and see whether or not he is the person against whom the Prophet of Allah had issued a warning. That person will then shout, This is the Dajjal of whom the Prophet of Allah had spokenÉ That man will be greatest as a witness in the eyes of the Lord of the Worlds' (Mishkat, Kitab-ul-Fitn, page 474).
'That person will be the nearest to me in degree' (Kanz al-Ummal, Vol. 7, No. 2070).
That that person will be the Promised Messiah was also prophesied by the Great Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). When Hazrat Umar ibn Khattab, thinking that one Ibn Sayyad was the Dajjal, sought the Holy Prophet's permission to kill him, the Holy Prophet said, 'If this is the Dajjal foretold, then you have nothing to do with him, as the Son of Mary is his master' (Mishkat, Chapter on Ibn Sayyad).
How the Promised Messiah dealt with the grave danger to Islam from the Dajjal and virtually finished him off will be discussed in the next chapter and Chapters 11 and 12.
Anti-Christ
The mention of the Dajjal also occurs in Christian literature under the name of Anti-Christ. That name remains appropriate, as what the Dajjal preached as Christianity was contrary to the real teachings of Jesus Christ, as will be shown in Chapter 12.
AHMADIYYAT IN THE SERVICE OF ISLAM by N.A. Faruqui Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam, Lahore, Inc. 36911 Walnut Street, Newark California 94560 USA Copyright© by Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam Lahore, Inc. 1983. First published in 1983 by the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam Lahore, Inc. (USA) 36911 Walnut Street Newark, California 94560 USA Library of Congress catalog car number: 83-71698 ISBN 0-913321-00-1 All rights reserved. Cover Design: Details of Wall Mosaics in the Mosque of El Bordeyhy (17th century) From Dover Pictorial Archive Series Arabic Art in Color (Dover 1978). Typeset by Linguatype Limited, Slough, Berks, England.
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