Foretellings of the Second Coming of the
Prophet 'ISA (a.s.)
There are a great many portents indicating
that the Prophet Jesus’ (pbuh) coming to Earth is drawing
nigh. These portents have been revealed to us in the Qur’an,
in the hadiths of our Prophet (may God bless him and grant
him peace) and in statements by various Islamic scholars.
In addition to these, there are also various events revealed
in the Torah and the Bible regarding the period before doomsday
and the return to Earth of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh). All the
events related in these resources are each news indicating
the nearness of the second coming of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
to Earth.
Signs of the Last Day
Mutually-supported messengers
The Foes of the Messengers
Statements in the Torah and the Bible
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SIGNS OF THE LAST DAY
What are they awaiting but
for the Hour to come upon them suddenly? Its Signs have
already come. What good will their Reminder be to them when
it does arrive? (Qur'an, 47:18)
As can be seen in the above verse, God has revealed some
of the portents of doomsday to us in the Qur’an. In 61st verse
of Surat az-Zukhruf God informs us, with reference to the
Prophet Jesus (pbuh), that “He is a Sign of the Hour. Have
no doubt about it…” In a hadith, our Prophet (may God
bless him and grant him peace) said,
As can be seen in the Qur’an and the hadiths, the return
to Earth of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is one of the signs of
the approach of doomsday. That being the case, the other portents
of doomsday need to be regarded as signs indicating that the
coming of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is drawing nigh.
The following pages will therefore devote space to the portents
of doomsday, in the Qur’an and in the hadiths of our Prophet
(may God bless him and grant him peace), as signs of the coming
of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh). As we examine these portents,
it will evidently be seen that many of them have taken place
consecutively.
MUTUALLY-SUPPORTED MESSENGERS
When we look at the information in the Qur’an regarding the
prophets of the past, we see that God has supported many prophets
with other prophets or else with servants possessed of knowledge.
The Prophet Moses (pbuh) sought help from God, Who replied
to him:
He [God] said, “We will reinforce you with
your brother and by Our Signs will give you both authority,
so that they will not be able to lay a hand on you. You and
those who follow you will be the victors.” (Qur’an, 28:35)
When we look at the life of the Prophet Moses (pbuh), we
see that God supported him with other servants. Some of the
verses on this subject read:
Remember when Moses said to his young servant,
“I will not give up until I reach the meeting-place of the
two seas, even if I must press on for many years.” (Qur’an,
18:60)
They found a servant of Ours whom
We had granted mercy from Us and whom We had also given knowledge
direct from Us. Moses said to him, “May I follow you on condition
that you teach me some of the right guidance you have been
taught?” (Qur’an, 18:65-66)
Another of His servants whom God supported with another prophet
was the Prophet Abraham (pbuh). God reveals in the Qur’an
that the Prophet Lut (pbuh) came to believe with the message
of the Prophet Abraham (pbuh):
He said, “You have adopted idols apart from
God as tokens of mutual affection in this world. But then
on the Day of Rising you will reject one another and curse
one another. The Fire will be your shelter. You will have
no helpers.” And Lut believed in him. He said, “I am leaving
this place to follow the pleasure of my Lord. He is the Almighty,
the All Wise.” (Qur’an, 29:25-26)
We can see another example on this subject in the life of
the Prophet Mohammed (may God bless him and grant him peace):
If you do not help him, God did help him
when the disbelievers drove him out and there were two of
them in the Cave. He said to his companion, “Do not be despondent,
God is with us.” Then God sent down His serenity upon him
and reinforced him with troops you could not see. He made
the word of the disbelief undermost… (Qur’an, 9:40)
Another of the prophets whom God supported with others of
His servants is the Prophet Dawud (pbuh). Some of the information
in the Qur’an concerning the Prophet Dawud (pbuh) and Talut,
who has been sent as a king, is as follows:
Their Prophet said to them, “God has appointed
Talut to be your king.” They said, “How can he have kingship
over us when we have much more right to kingship than he does?
He has not even got much wealth!” He said, “God has chosen
him over you and favored him greatly in knowledge and physical
strength. God gives kingship to anyone He wills. God is All-Encompassing,
All-Knowing.” (Qur’an, 2:247)
When Talut marched out with the army,
he said, “God will test you with a river. Anyone who drinks
from it is not with me. But anyone who does not taste it is
with me–except for him who merely scoops up a little in his
hand.” But they drank from it–except for a few of them. Then
when he and those who believed with him had crossed it, they
said, “We do not have the strength to face Goliath and his
troops today.” But those who were sure that they were going
to meet God said, “How many a small force has triumphed over
a much greater one by God’s permission! God is with the steadfast.”
When they came out against Goliath and his
troops, they said, “Our Lord, pour down steadfastness upon
us, and make our feet firm, and help us against this disbelieving
people.”
And with God's permission they routed them.
Dawud killed Goliath and God gave him kingship and wisdom
and taught him whatever He willed… (Qur’an, 2:249-251)
In other verses, our Lord relates that He gave knowledge
to the Prophet Dawud (pbuh) and the Prophet Solomon (pbuh)
and that the Prophet Solomon (pbuh) became Dawud's (pbuh)
heir:
We gave knowledge to Dawud and Solomon who
said, “Praise be to God Who has favored us over many of His
servants who are believers.” Solomon was Dawud’s heir. He
said, “Mankind! We have been taught the speech of birds and
we have been given everything. This is indeed clear favor.”
(Qur’an, 27:15-16)
As we have seen from the verses and stories quoted thus far,
God has from time to time supported his messengers with others.
Our Lord will also support the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) with a
holy individual. This person, revealed in the hadiths of our
prophet, is the Mahdi.
The word “Mahdi” means “he who leads to the truth.” Our Prophet
(may God bless him and grant him peace) states that God will
send a servant to prevent the chaos which will emerge in the
end times and to lead people to salvation. In the hadiths
of our prophet, one feature of the Mahdi, about whom we are
told the place he will appear, the time, what he will do and
his characteristics, is that he will act together with the
Prophet Jesus (pbuh).
There are a number of hadiths of our Prophet on this subject,
some of which read as follows:
Some Islamic scholars have made detailed expositions to
the effect that the Mahdi and the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will
act together. Some of these read as follows:
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rasul Barzanji:
Imam Rabbani:
The Mahdi will appear shortly before the Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
and first wage an ideological struggle within the Islamic
world. He will return Muslims who have split away from the
essence of Islam to true faith and moral values. According
to the hadiths, the Prophet Jesus (pbuh), who will return
to Earth in the same time as the Mahdi, will primarily address
the Christian and Jewish worlds, free them from the superstitions
into which they have fallen and call them to live by the Qur’an.
As Christians abide by the Prophet Jesus (pbuh), the Muslim
and Christian worlds will come together in a single faith
and the world will enjoy a period of peace, security, happiness
and well-being known as the “golden age.”
The fact that the Mahdi will appear shortly before the Prophet
Jesus (pbuh) is stated in these terms in another source concerning
the end times:
All these therefore demonstrate that the portents regarding
the coming of the Mahdi are also those of the appearance of
the Prophet Jesus (pbuh). In the sections which follow we
shall be examining, one by one, the portents of the appearance
of the Mahdi as giving the glad tiding of of the secind coming
of God’s holy Prophet Jesus (pbuh).
THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE MESSENGERS
In one verse God has revealed the following, “In this
way We have assigned to every Prophet an enemy from among
the evildoers…” (Qur’an, 25:31) As is openly expressed
in this verse, there have always been people inimical to the
messengers of God and who have sought to obstruct them. When
the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) returns to Earth he will have enemies
and people opposed to him. At the head of those enemies, of
course, will be an individual who leads the deniers and who
organizes and arranges evil,) according to one verse.
That individual is described as the Antichrist in the hadiths
of our Prophet. Antichrist is an Arabic word meaning “liar,
fraudster, who confuses hearts and minds, good with evil,
divine religion with superstition, who conceals the true face
of things, a mischief-maker and accursed person who wanders
everywhere.” The Antichrist will appear in the end times (the
final days of the world) and is the name of a great negative
power. In the hadiths the Antichrist is usually portrayed
as a person, but in the same way as it may be an individual,
it may also refer to an ideology which tends towards violence
and oppression and which possesses devilish characteristics.
In a period such as the end times, when extraordinary events
will take place, the Antichrist will be the enemy of the messenger
of God and will seek to install a satanic system. The Antichrist
will be one of the fiercest deniers of all time. In fact,
our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) has described
the enormity of the strife of the Antichrist in these terms:
In others of the hadiths of our Prophet (may God bless him
and grant him peace), the Antichrist is referred to as one
of the major portents of doomsday:
Great Islamic scholars have reported as a certain fact that
the Antichrist will come to Earth before doomsday. Abu Hanifa,
for instance, has this to say on the subject:
God will use the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) to defeat of the Antichrist,
who will appear at the same time as the Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
and the Mahdi, in other words in the end times. As our Prophet
has informed us, the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will kill the Antichrist,
and will usher in a holy period when Islamic moral values
hold sway over the Earth. One hadith regarding the slaying
of the Antichrist (Dajjal) by the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) says:
In his works, the great Islamic scholar Bediuzzaman devotes
considerable space to the end times and the return of the
Prophet Jesus (pbuh). One of the main subjects he emphasizes
is that when the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) returns he will wage
a great struggle with the Antichrist, the representative of
atheism on Earth, and that the prophet will defeat the Antichrist.
Some of Bediuzzaman’s statements on this subject read:
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Moreover, in the world
of humanity, with the intention of denying the Godhead,
the secret society of the Antichrist (Dajjal) will overturn
civilization and subvert all mankind's sacred matters.
A zealous and self-sacrificing community known as a
Christian community but worthy of being called 'Muslim
Christians', will work to unite the true religion of
Jesus (pbuh) with the reality of Islam, and will kill
and rout that society of the Antichrist, thus saving
humanity from atheism. (Bediuzzaman, Risale-i Nur Collection,
The Letters, 29th Letter, 514, 515)
… “He will be so powerful and long-lived that only
Jesus (pbuh) will be able to kill him (Antichrist);
nothing else will be able to.” That is, it will only
be a revealed, elevated, pure religion that will be
able to overturn his way and rapacious regime, and
eliminate them. Such a religion will emerge among
the true followers of Jesus (pbuh), and it will follow
the Qur’an and become united with it. On the coming
of Jesus (pbuh) and emergence of the true Christian
religion, the Antichrist’s irreligious way will be
wiped out and will cease. The Antichrist’s person
could otherwise be killed by a mere germ or by influenza.
(Bediuzzaman, Risale-i Nur Collection, The Rays, Fifth
Ray, Fifth Point)
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What is referred in this explanation of Said Nursi as the
“true Christian religion” is the religion of Islam. This becomes
more apparent when his other explanations are considered.
Indeed, the hadiths also inform us that the Prophet Jesus
(pbuh) will rule with the Qur’an, eliminate the superstitious
beliefs of Christianity and gather humanity under a single
religion, that is, the morality of Islam.
As can be seen from all these statements, the Prophet Jesus
(pbuh) and the Antichrist will be on the Earth at the same
time. For that reason, just as with the portents of doomsday
and the coming of the Mahdi, the portents regarding the Antichrist
are also portents foretelling the second coming of the Prophet
Jesus (pbuh). Again in the sections which follow we shall
be looking at the portents of the Antichrist in some detail,
and it will again be stressed by this means that the coming
of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is close at hand.
STATEMENTS IN THE TORAH AND THE BIBLE
We have so far only discussed the foretelling of the coming
of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) in Islamic sources. As we have
seen from these, we have a lot of information from Islamic
sources regarding the end times. No matter how corrupted their
texts may be, however, there are also reports in the Torah
and the Bible which give the good news of the return of the
Prophet Jesus (pbuh). Even if we cannot be completely certain
of the accuracy of thee reports, it will still be useful to
bear in mind those which are compatible with the Qur’an and
the hadiths of our Prophet. This is because there is a strong
likelihood that statements compatible with Islamic sources
have kept their original form.
The name of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) does not appear in the
modern Torah, although we are told that a savior, a Messiah,
will come from the line of the Prophet Dawud (pbuh). The Jews
refused to accept the sending of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
to the Children of Israel as a prophet, and rejected him.
For that reason they are still awaiting the coming of the
“Messiah-savior.” Moreover, there are also some references
to events in the end times in the Torah.
The Bible on the other hand contains a great many statements
on these subjects, especially regarding the second coming
of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and the signs of that coming.
In these statements, the natural events which will mark the
times before and after the coming of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh)
are described. We witness most of the portents set out in
some detail in the hadiths of our Prophet (may God bless him
and grant him peace) as coming about in our day in a manner
strikingly comparable to earlier times. The important thing
is that it is not just one or two of the signs in question
which are appearing in our day, but just about all of them,
one after the other. This makes it possible to say, based
particularly on Islamic sources but also on the Torah and
the Bible, that the time we are living in is actually the
end times.
The sections that follow will contain extracts from the Torah
and the Bible which refer to the end times and point to the
return to Earth of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh).
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