There are some Muslims who, impressed by the views of distinguished scholars such as Ibn Khaldun and Dr Muhammad Iqbal, have rejected belief in the advent of Imām al-Mahdi. Some of them even go on to dismiss our preoccupation with this subject with disdain and with spurious comments.

They should be warned that it is not only false but also sinful to argue that those who strive for a deeper understanding of the subject of the advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi al-Salām) are a people who are content to sit waiting with folded arms for the Imām while doing nothing to combat falsehood and oppression in the world.

We have no doubt that certain members of the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) will be blessed with true dreams and visions which will convey to them information concerning the End-Time advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi al-Salām). Readers must know however, that information so obtained cannot be objectively verified, and hence that there is no compulsion on any one to accept such information as truth.

This writer has never attempted to use such information in his analysis of events now mysteriously unfolding in the world, and in the Holy Land in particular. Rather he has continuously striven to grasp the ‘system of meaning’ of the subject of the End Times as derived from data located in the Qur’ān and Ahadīth of Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam). He is confident that his students will Insha Allah, continue that effort when he is no longer in this world. His conclusions, based on rational analysis (and intuitive internal insight), must always be qualified with the words Allahu ‘alam (Allah Knows best).

Prophet Muhammad prophesied the advent of an Imām who would emerge by Divine decree to lead the world of Islam at that time when the true Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them all), was about to return.  The Prophet declared of that end-time Imām that he would arise from within the ranks of the Muslims: “How would you be”, he said, “when the son of Mary descends amongst you and your Imām would be from your own ranks!” (Sahīh Bukhāri).

An Imām in the religion of Islam is both a religious as well as a political leader; hence the office of the Imām is synonymous with that of Amīr or Khalīfa (Caliph).  The Hadīth therefore prophesied that one (Islamic) government would eventually rule over the entire world of Islam, and that the Imām would be both the political as well as the religious head of that government. 

This prophecy anticipated the present sorry status quo in which the Islamic Khilāfah (Caliphate) has been replaced by republican so-called Islamic States based on petty tribal nationalisms – Egyptian, Saudi, Pakistani, Arab, Malay, Punjabi, Bengali, Persian (Iranian) etc. African-American Muslims have even embraced Louis Farrakhan’s ‘black Muslim nationalism’. Some of them, such as Turkey and Bangladesh have even imposed secular constitutional bans preventing Islam from playing any political role in the affairs of the State.

WILL THE SECOND SINKING OF THE EARTH SOON OCCUR?

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) prophesied that ten major Signs of the Last Day would occur as follows:

1. Dajjal, the false Messiah or Anti-Christ,

2. Gog and Magog,

3. Smoke,

4. The beast of the earth or land (most likely the holy land),

5. That the sun would rise from the west,

6, 7 & 8. That the earth will sink on three occasions - one in the East, one in the West and one in Arabia,

9. That a fire would come out of Yemen and would drive people to their place of assembly (for judgement),

10. That the son of Mary would descend (i.e. return).

The blessed Prophet did not provide information concerning the chronological order in which those Ten Signs would occur.

Ten Major Signs of the Last day  - German translation by brother Tamim Darri

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A mong the Signs of the Last Day as disclosed by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is that “time would move faster - so that a whole year would pass like a month, a month would pass like a week, a week like a day, a day like an hour, and an hour like the amount of time it takes to kindle a fire.” Why so?

He explained that the perception of time moving faster would be in consequence of the ‘remembrance’ of Allah Most High (Dhikr) departing from the heart, and a preoccupation with the worldly life (Dunyah) taking exclusive possession of the heart. The consequence of this spiritual vacuum would be that “people would make business agreements with one another and scarcely anyone would fulfill his trust”, and “it would be said that among such and such a tribe there is a trustworthy man. People would remark of how intelligent, excellent and resolute a man he is while (in fact) he would not have as much faith (in Allah) in his heart as a grain of a mustard seed.”

LAST DAY MEANS LAST AGE

The term ‘Last Day’ in reality stands for the ‘Last Age’, or the age which would culminate in the end of history—when the true Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary (not son of God), would return to rule the world from Jerusalem with justice and ‘eternal’ rule. It would be ‘eternal’ in the sense that history would end with that event. Life on earth beyond that event, and after Jesus dies a human death and is buried next to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them both) in Madinah, would not qualify as history. This would be so since the modern secular rope would have reached its predictable end in total godlessness, and with such a consequent collapse of morals, and of moral consciousness, that people would forget their human status and “would engage in sexual intercourse in public like donkeys”. Already it is quite clear (particularly at the time of Trinidad’s Carnival) that we are quite close to the fulfillment of that ominous prophecy made by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

So much so then, for the spurious claims of the one-eyed Judeo-Christian western civilization and its ‘colored house slaves’ around the world. They claim that mankind is witnessing unprecedented progress, that the present is the best of all ages, that the world keeps on growing better and better, and that modern western civilization has rendered all previous civilizations, including Islam, moribund and obsolete!

History is more than a mere record of events. History not only records the constant changes that take place in the world but also seeks to interpret that phenomenon of change. An analysis of the historical process, of the movement of history, and of the end of history, emerges from the interpretation of change in the world. It answers many nagging questions.

Last December’s massive under-water ‘sinking’ of the ocean-bed L in South-East Asia spawned a Tsunami which caused more than a hundred thousand deaths, most of them in the faithfully Muslim province of Aceh in Indonesia. It also provoked me to write an essay entitled “Ten Major Signs of the Last Day – Has One Just Occurred?” That essay directed attention to three ‘sinkings’ of the earth, as prophesied by Prophet Muhammad, that would herald the return of Jesus, the true Messiah (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them both). The first, he said, would occur in the East (i.e., east of the Arabian city of Madina), the second in the West, and the third and last in Arabia itself.

I argued at that time that events now dramatically unfolding in the world were linked to that momentous ‘Messianic return’ with which history would culminate, and that December’s Tsunami was very likely the first of the three signs mentioned above, i.e., the sinking of the earth in the East. And Allah Knows best! That view of mine found ready acceptance amongst many Muslims in different parts of the world, but has so far failed to provoke a serious response, either positive or negative, from the scholars of Islam.

Lessons from the Birth of Mary’s Son

One people today totally dominate and control the entire world, its politics, economy, culture, news, sports, entertainment, fashions, travel, etc. They possess absolute power that no possible combination of rivals can now challenge. Moreover, there is no secular evidence to suggest that their powerful grip over the whole world can ever be successfully challenged. They do much more than control the world. They change, unfold and reinvent themselves, and then change the world as well, until it becomes their carbon copy. They have broken down all the barriers that have for ages separated people from each other, and a single global society has emerged for the first time in human history with a single language, English. They are the Judeo-Christian Euro-world-order (i.e., modern secular western civilization), and they are an absolutely unique phenomenon in history.

They are an ominous ‘world-order’, ominous for Arabs and Muslims in particular, and for non-Europeans in general. But even those European people who would live lives of piety, faith and righteousness are not spared. The ‘world-order’ wages relentless war on the religious way of life in general, and on Islam in particular. They use their absolute power to corrupt, to oppress, and to engage in acts of injustice and wickedness with no parallel in history.