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SO-CALLED APOCALYPTIC SIGNS: SECOND COMING, MAHDIS MAHDI AND THE ANTICHRISTIt is believed that this figure is about to appear near the end of the world to wipe out the enemies and become the Lord of the world and to later join Christ to defeat the Antichrist. According to the hadiths not only the Mahdi, but also his disciples, possesses superior powers. Thousands of hadiths have been concocted to prove that one’s own sheikh or leader was the Mahdi. There are many contradictory accounts as to the outward appearance of Mahdi, the place where he is to emerge and about his doings. Damascus, Kufa, Istanbul and Madina are the possible points of emergence of Mahdi according to the hadiths. The first generations invented so many hadiths that there was nothing more left for later generations. The description of Mahdi differed according to different leaders; as he was to assume the guise of the leader in question. There has been an inflation of Mahdis in the world of Islam.THRONGS OF MAHDISIn order to understand better the traditionalist communities, we must dwell on the Mahdi issue. A great majority of congregations are reticent about messianism. Even after entering a religious order, the novice is enlightened on the issue not by the sheikh but someone nearest to him. Congregations are convinced that the hadiths prefer the disclosure of the identity of the Mahdi in a confidential manner, passing the information from ear to ear. This messianism provides the disciples with tremendous energy. The fact that a disciple’s leader is a person of a power equal to the power of a prophet, as described 1400 years ago, is the generator of this energy. This unconditional dependence on the sheikh induces the disciple to hand over whatever he possesses to the hands of his sheikh. It never occurs to him to call to question any act of his sheikh, however doubtful. Legends about the prospect that his sheikh will be the future caliph give rise to malicious gossip about possible rebellions and coups to clear the path for the caliph to come. In point of fact, there have been many such uprisings in the history of Islam led by paranoid Mahdis.HOMEINI DERIVING HIS POWER FROM MESSIANIC HOPESThe belief in Mahdi is essential to the credo of the Shiites. It is even superior to the sunna. It is believed that Mahdi is Muhammad, son of Hasan Askeri, born in 256 AH. Now that we are in the year 1400 AH, Mahdi, according to the belief of the Shiites, is a person who has been playing hide and seek for a space of time longer than 1100 years. To evaluate the Shia and assess the reforms in Iran, knowledge about the Mahdi issue is a must. According to this formulated belief, Mahdi’s deputies will reign until his coming; any disobedience to them means disobedience to Mahdi himself, which is tantamount to disobedience to God. Ayatullah Homeini derived his power from his deputyship. Absolute submission to Homeini was a religious duty according to the Shia belief. This state of affairs has been the main reason for the indivisible unity of the Iranian people in the revolution.ANTICHRIST RESUSCITATING THE DEADThe Antichrist is the person against whom Mahdi and Jesus will fight. Those who believe that their sheikh is the Mahdi readily announce the person standing against him or opposing his ideas as the Antichrist. There are many legends about Mahdi told in the hadiths. The Antichrist is said to have his own paradise and hell and to possess the power of resuscitating the dead, this having ‘Infidel’ written on his forehead, , that he is blind and happens to be the greatest mischief-maker who ever existed in the world.For instance, Said Nursi, founder of the Nurculuk order, presented himself as a pioneer of Mahdi. He styled Atatürk as the Antichrist. You may observe in his books how he re-formulates the transmitted hadiths to fit him. For instance, the belief that the forehead of the Antichrist bears the word ‘Infidel’ is interpreted as Atatürk’s hat reform. The hadith that speaks of a long donkey means, according to him, a train. As for the heaven and hell of the Antichrist, heaven refers to the entertainment organized under the Republic and hell refers to the imprisonment of the opposition. The prominent leader of the Sunni community in Turkey had thus found out the Antichrist and declared himself Mahdi. The foremost leaders of the Nurcu communities that succeeded Said Nursi were thought to be Mahdi by some of them. Süleymancýlýk, the second major Nurcu community, headed by Suleyman Hilmi Tunahan, is considered by his disciples to be Mahdi. The successor of Suleyman Hilmi Tunahan also is considered Mahdi. The same things hold true for the founders of greatest orders and their successors in Turkey. Despite the diverse alternatives of the Mahdi figures, these people have a concert of voices about Atatürk being the Antichrist. One of the main reasons is Atatürk’s abolition of the caliphate. There is no point of reminding our readers that all these considerations are outside the scope of the Quran. While there is nothing in the Quran to suggest the existence of a Mahdi or an Antichrist, all those who oppose the traditionalist Islam have been considered as antichrists. Blood has been shed on a vast scale and an Islamic mythology has been fabricated. The Mahdi, expected to come in every age, encouraged people to laziness in the hope they will be saved by him instead of seeking salvation through their own means. On the other hand, the traditionalists accused the antichrists of offenses they themselves committed and made them their scapegoats. THE SECOND COMINGThe Second Coming is not mentioned in the Quran. However there are hadiths that speak of Christ’s return from east of Damascus where he will meet the Mahdi and kill the Antichrist. A hadith to which great credence is given by Abu Hurayra and such traditionalists as Bukhari and Muslim runs as follows: “I swear by God that Christ will soon come to act as arbiter. When he comes, he will destroy the crosses, kill the swine, cancel the tributes and put an end to the monkey and oust every faith except Islam.” This hadith, we believe invented by the converts to Islam, has no corroborative evidence in the Quran.Hüseyin Atay makes the following comment referring to this verse: “According to the Quran, Jesus was not killed; he died his own death. Jesus being dead, he will not come back to life. One should not rely and base one’s credence on hadiths, and the hadiths cannot be interpreted as part of the Quran. In one of the legends told after the death of the Prophet and brought over from a Christian cult and culture to the Islamic literature, Jesus did not die, he ascended to the heaven and will descend from there on the eve of the Day of Judgment from the minaret in Damascus. This is nothing but an Islamized version of the Christian myth. Those who do not believe this legend are taxed with infidelity” (Hüseyin Atay, Investigations According to the Quran). Given the fact that Jesus also was a prophet and Muhammad was the last prophet, the return of Christ as a prophet contradicts the Quran’s statement. In Sura Maryam reference is made to three important days of Christ as may be seen in the verse above. There is no mention of his Second Coming. Had there been such a thing as a Second Coming, it would certainly have been mentioned in the Quran. The story of the Second Coming of Christ gave rise to infinite speculations and led to the emergence of false Christs that filled up asylums. AGOG AND MAGOGAgog and Magog is the name of a community mentioned in the Quran. The name is mentioned in the Quran in the following contexts:94- They said: “O Zulqarnain! Agog and Magog do great mischief on earth: shall we then render your tribute in order that you may erect a barrier between us and them?” 95- He said: “The power in which my Lord has established me is better. Help me therefore with strength: I will erect a strong barrier between you and them” 96- “Bring me blocks of iron.” He filled the gap between, and then said: “Blow.” Once it was red hot, he said: “Bring me copper that I may pour over it.” 97- Thus, they could not climb it, nor dig a hole through it. 98 – He said “This is a mercy from my Lord: But when the promise of my Lord comes to pass, He will make it into dust; and the promise of my Lord is true.” 97 – That is when the fulfillment of the truthful promise will approach. The eyes of the disbelievers will fixedly stare in horror: “Woe to us! We were indeed heedless of this. In fact we have been wicked.” According to a legendary account, Agog and Magog are a people generated by the sperm of Adam during the ejaculation he experienced in sleep. Another account is to the effect that it is a community of people not taller than ten inches who have a subterranean life and will come up near the Day of Judgment. According to the hadith transmitted by Ibn Abu Hatam Shuayh who opposes the above hadith of Ibn Abbas, the people Agog and Magog are of three categories. The first category resembles a huge tree. The second one has a length of four cubits and a width of four cubits. The third one makes a bed out of one of his ears and uses his second one as a coverlet. A still more interesting account is the claim that these people are Turks, which demonstrates the Arab hostility to the Turks. DABBELet us see what the Quran has to say about the Dabbe:On the other hand, a hadith gives the following account on the issue: “Dabbe has the head of an ox, the eyes of a pig, the ears of an elephant, the horns of a goat, the neck of an ostrich, the chest of a lion, a brownish color, the tail of a ram, and the feet of a camel.” There are also strange hadiths that describe the Dabbe’s head reaching to the sky, the tail reaching to the one of the poles and the feet on the Arabic peninsula. According to one account the Dabbe has in his hand the seal of Solomon and the scepter of Moses. It has been our intention not to try to find out what the Dabbe and the Gog and Magog are. These figures about which there is but scant information should be dealt with within the framework of the Quran. Reference to the hadiths, about these figures, around which a whole mythology has been fantasized, has made the issue even more problematic. The Antichrist, Mahdi and the Second Coming are nowhere mentioned in the Quran. They are part of mythological hadiths. |