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Chapter 19:
Gog and Magog in Hadith and their Identity with the
Dajjal:
I have already shown that the
Qur'an while speaking of the Gog and the Magog towards the
end of the chapter entitled -- the Cave, reverts to
the mention of the Christian nations, which shows that it
makes no difference between the two. As for the Bible, it
says explicitly, as already shown, that the Gog and the
Magog are none others than the Russians and other nations of
the same land, i.e. Europe. A common misunderstanding
that is prevalent about Gog and Magog as described in the
Books of Hadith, is that they are regarded as a peculiar
kind of creation, although many hadith make it quite clear
that they are human beings just like ourselves:
Verily Gog and Magog are of
the progeny of Adam
(Kanz al-`Ummal Vol. 7, No.
2158.).
Another hadith says that God will
reveal to the Messiah:
Verily I have created some of
My servants whom no one can destroy but
Myself (Ibid.,
No. 3021.).
In the same book vol. 7, we have
another hadith (No. 3032) in which it is expressly stated
that they are of the progeny of Adam. Perhaps the
misunderstanding on this score has its origin in a statement
in the hadith which says that they will drink up the whole
mass of water in the world. The hadith runs as
follows:
They will drink the water of
the world so much so that when some of them will pass by
a stream they will drink all that is in it and leave it
dry (Ibid.,
No. 2157.).
Another hadith says that the advance
guards of Gog and Magog will cross the gulf of Tiberius and
they will drink the whole mass of water in
it (Ibid., No.
3021.). And it is remarkable that
in the hadith of Tamim Dari, Dajjal also asks Tamim Dari
about the Gulf of Tiberius:
Tell me about the Gulf of
Tiberius ... Is there any water in
it? (Ibid.,
No. 2027.)
This incidentally shows that Dajjal
and Gog and Magog mean the same thing. But their drinking up
the water means no more than that all provisions of life
will be in their control, because water is the source of
life. Again, the fact that the prophecies relating to both
Dajjal and Gog and Magog occur in connection with the
expected Messiah, is a further proof that they are
identical. A little reflection will reveal that the
respective descriptions of the two express practically the
same ideas, only in different words. About both it has been
said that their earthly power will reach the climax. They
will have control over every kind of provisions of life, and
"no one will have power to stand against them". They will
spread over the whole surface of the earth and will be an
object of great trial for the Muslims. All these common
features of their appearance show that they are one and the
same people, and both apply fittingly to the nations of
Europe. As a matter of fact, the two names have been adopted
to express two different aspects of their appearance. The
name Dajjal indicates their acts of deception through
provisions of life, and Gog and Magog is to express their
political and military power. It should be borne in mind
that these prophecies about the predominance of the
Christian nations came to be recorded by the Muslims at a
time when their own power and supremacy had eclipsed all
other powers of the world.
Chapter 20:
The Dajjal will be Recognised by a Particular Man from among
Muslims:
It is rather strange that if
on the one hand the Hadith describes the signs of Dajjal in
a manner that is intelligible to the least intelligent of
people, on the other it tells us that a large number of
people will fall a prey to his enticements. If all these
things -- that Dajjal will have his right eye devoid of
vision, and that his left eye will be shining like a star,
that he will have the word Kafir written on his
forehead which every believer, literate or illiterate, will
be able to read, that he will have a strange kind of ass as
his conveyance, whose two ears will be seventy yards apart,
that he will be carrying heaven and hell, that he will have
mountains of bread and streams of water with him, that he
will cause clouds to shower rain, and so on and so forth --
if all these things were to see their literal fulfilment, no
one could have failed to recognise him as soon as he
appeared. In that case, there could have been no need at all
for a particular man from among the Muslims to recognise him
and proclaim to the people that he was actually the Dajjal
against whom the Holy Prophet had warned. But one hadith
says:
A person from among the
believers would say: I will go up to this man and see
whether or not he is the person against whom the Prophet
of God had issued a warning.
Indeed if the signs can be seen as the
outward meaning of the words of the prophecies would
indicate, where was the need for this particular believer to
recognise him and proclaim to the people that Dajjal was
there? Dajjal's own presence with all the patent signs on
him would have been enough for such a proclamation. Indeed,
any other proclamation would be superfluous. The
irresistible conclusion, therefore, is that these signs were
to see not a literal fulfilment but a metaphorical one, so
that a man of extraordinary vision would be needed to grasp
their inner significance and their timely fulfilment in the
appearance of Dajjal in the sense in which it was intended
to come about.
Chapter 21:
Who is it who Said: "This is the Dajjal Mentioned by the
Holy Prophet"?:
It is really strange that the
discovery that Dajjal and Gog and Magog are no other than
these nations of Europe, was made by the dweller of a
village, a recluse, who had scarcely any knowledge of the
world at large (Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the founder of the Ahmadiyyah
Movement, Mujaddid of the 14th century of Hijrah, who
claimed to be the Promised Messiah and
Mahdi.). More than half a century
ago, when the people of the world were absolutely ignorant
about the identity of Dajjal and Gog and Magog, no one even
suspected that it was these nations that had established
their complete supremacy in the world and were ruling this
country of ours, who were the Dajjal and Gog and Magog of
the prophecies; when, on the contrary, all minds were
obsessed with the idea that Dajjal would be a strange kind
of one-eyed man, who would have a strange sort of ass with
him together with other strange things -- at a time such as
this it was that God enlightened the Mujaddid of this
century and granted him the knowledge that Dajjal and Gog
and Magog were no other than these very people who were in
complete control of the world, and whose worldly eye was
extremely sharp and whose spiritual eye equally blind. It
was moreover, a thing, which even if any one had known, he
could not have the courage to speak about it. But the
solitary recluse of Qadian, the Mujaddid of the 14th century
of Hijrah, proclaimed it to the world with a fearlessness
all his own. Neither caring for the opposition of the whole
world nor for the possible harm that might come from the
Government, nor yet for the influence which the Christian
clergy and missionaries in those days wielded over the
administrators, he proclaimed in the year 1981C.E. at the
top of his voice: "This is the Dajjal about whom the Holy
Prophet spoke." People had no knowledge that they were face
to face with Dajjal, and were the helpless yet unconscious
victims of his machinations exactly in the manner described
in Hadith. The Mujaddid of this century told them that
Dajjal was before them and that they should be on their
guard. Let us quote some of his utterances on this
point:
How can I make the
blasphemous statement, that the one-eyed Dajjal, like God
Himself, will give life to the dead by virtue of his own
power, and will show manifest signs of the powers of
Divinity? In my opinion the word Dajjal denotes some
flourishing nations and his "ass" may mean the railway
train which one finds running for thousands of miles in
the countries of the East and
West (Izalah
Auham p. 478.).
It
was necessary that Masih al-Dajjal (the Antichrist)
should emerge from the Church itself.1
But the Dajjal who is to emerge
from the Church, about whom Muslim has reported in his
reliable collections from Fatimah daughter of Qais, and
who is described as of enormous physical strength and
shackled in chains, and who has also a spy, this is the
Dajjal whom Tamim Dari had seen in a Church in an
island (Izalah
Auham p. 480.).
It should be remembered that in the
lexicographical sense Dajjal means `a group of liars',
who mix up falsehood with truth and use fraud and
deception to misguide the creatures of
God (Izalah
Auham p. 488.).
It is evident that these are the
magical methods adopted by the Christian nations, the
champions of the doctrine of Trinity, the magic of which
cannot be excelled in perfection, and that they are not
capable of performance by any one excepting by a real
Dajjal, that Dajjal indeed about whom the prophecies have
spoken (Ibid.,
p. 494.).
The word 'one-eyed' is not to be
taken literally. Allah says in the Holy Qur'an "Whoever
is blind in this world will be blind in the
hereafter
(17:72.)." Blindness here
evidently means spiritual blindness. Thus the word under
discussion will mean that Dajjal will have no spiritual
sight, although his worldly sight will be very sharp; and
along with it, he will discover such subtle methods
resulting in such wonderful performances, that he will
almost appear as one claiming Divinity. But he will have
no spiritual vision whatsoever, as is the case with the
people of America and Europe today, who have carried the
physical side of life to
perfection (Izalah
Auham p. 501.).
And as for Gog and Magog, it is now
beyond all doubt that these are two prosperous nations of
the world, of whom one is the British and the other is
the Russians ... Both these nations are mentioned in the
Bible (Ibid.,
p. 502.).
A similar view should be taken of
Gog and Magog. These are two old nations of the world,
who could not openly overpower others in the previous
ages and were found in a weak state. But Allah says that
both of them will emerge from this obscurity in the later
days. In other words, they will manifest themselves in
their glorious power. Thus He says in the chapter, the
Cave, "And We shall let some of them surge against
the others
(18:99.)." That is to say, that
these two nations after having overpowered others, will
attack one another
(Izalah Auham p. 508.).
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1
(Izalah Auham., p. 478.)
Anti-christ (Greek antichristos against or
instead of Christ) according to Christians would
appear in the `last hour' i.e., before the
second advent of Christ. "Jesus himself not only
warned his apostles of `false Christs' (Matt., 24:
5, 23, 24; Mark 13: 21, 22) -- by which however, he
meant primarily Jewish Messianic pretenders -- but
plainly intimated that apostasy would arise within
the Church" (John D. Davis, The Westminster
Dictionary of the Bible Revised ed., 1944).
Further on it is stated: "Thus the N.T. declared
that Christian history would
not be a pure development of goodness and truth,
but that, within Christendom apostasy would arise,
develop, have many representatives, and finally
culminate in Antichrist proper (either a person or
an institution, perhaps both)" (ibid.).
Notwithstanding that antichristian spirit was going
to arise within the Church, efforts have also been
made by Christians to discover the Antichrist
outside the Church. "The Pope Innocent III
(1215) denounced the Saracenes (i.e.,
Muslims) as Antichrist and Muhammad as the
false prophet" (Royston Pyke, Encyclopaedia of
Religion and Ethics p. 20, George Allen and
Unwin Ltd., London, 1951). But it should also be
borne in mind that "the Papacy and individual Popes
were denounced as Antichrist by Wycliff, Huss, and
Luther, and the charge has been frequently restated
by ultra-Protestant writers" (ibid., p.
21.). An imaginary dialogue between Martin Luther
(1483-1546 C.E.) and the Pope may be of some
interest to the readers. This is a part of popular
ballad written about 1550 C.E.
"Doctor
Martin Luther:
Thou anti-Christ,
with thy three crowns,
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Hast usurped king's
powers,
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As having power over realms and towns,
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Whom thou oughtest
to serve all hours;
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Thou thinkest by thy juggling colours
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Thou may'st likewise
God's word oppress;
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As do deceitful fowlers,
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When they their nets
craftily dress.
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The
Pope:
As for scripture, I
am above it;
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Am I not God's high
vicar?
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Should I be bound to follow it,
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As the carpenter his
rule?
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Nay, nay heretics ye are,
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That will not obey
my authority.
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With this sword I will declare
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That ye shall all
accursed be."
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(English History in Contemporary Poetry,
No. III, The Historical Association).
The
Founder of the Ahmadiyyah
Movement, however,
found the whole institution of the Church,
particularly, the part engaged in slandering Islam,
going against the true teachings of Jesus Christ
and thus it deserved the appellation Antichrist. --
T
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Chapter 22:
The Holy Prophet's Saying: "A Follower Closest to me in
Position":
This voice which was raised
from Qadian, against nations who because of their supremacy
in the world regarded themselves as all powerful, if it
roused a violent opposition from the Muslims on the one
hand, who considered it as running counter to their
traditional beliefs, on the other, made the Christian
missionaries and clergy exert themselves to their utmost to
suppress the man who raised this voice, because they found
in it a mortal blow to their cherished notions of converting
the whole world to Christianity. These latter went to the
extent of planning a capital punishment for him on a false
charge of abetment to murder. And the strangest part of it
all is that the Christians, the Arya Samajists and the
Muslims all united in this unholy alliance of a mean
conspiracy. But this man of God cared for none and stood
like a rock in the midst of this deluge of opposition.
People ridiculed him; even Muslims scoffed at him saying:
This man claims to be the Promised Messiah and yet himself
rides on the ass of Dajjal, (meaning the railway train). But
truth is a powerful thing and it makes itself felt in the
hearts of men. In spite of all this opposition, the truth
which God Almighty had revealed to the heart of the
Imam of this age, began to find acceptance among the
people as days passed. So much so that at the present moment
Muslims of all classes, irrespective of their measure of
education, openly aver that Dajjal and Gog and Magog, of
which the recorded sayings of the Prophet speak, are no
other than the nations of Europe and America, that it is
these people who virtually claim to possess the powers of
God and that conveyances, like the railway train, constitute
the ass of Dajjal. The Muslim Press has to-day no hesitation
in describing Europe as the Dajjal and as Gog and Magog. And
to crown it all, the great national Muslim poet, the late
Sir Muhammad Iqbal, immortalised this idea in his famous
couplet:
The forces of Gog and Magog
have all been let loose,
Let the Muslim's eye
see the commentary on the verse
yansilun.1
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2
Yansilun
(i.e. they sally forth) is the last word of the
Quranic verse which speaks of Gog and Magog
overcoming the whole world: "When Gog and Magog are
made to overcome the world and they shall break
forth from every elevated place" (21:96). At this
juncture one is reminded of Sir Winston Churchill's
speech which he made at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at
the Guildhall on Friday, 9th November, 1951, at the
restoration of the effigies of Gog and Magog.
During the course of his speech he said:
"It seems that they
(i.e., 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 form 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, p. 6). - T
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All people thus now see, as it were,
Dajjal and Gog and Magog with their own eyes. And yet we
must ask ourselves the question who was the man who first
disclosed the identity of Dajjal? Was it not that man of God
about whom it is written in the Hadith that he would say, "O
people, this is the Dajjal about whom the Prophet (peace and
blessings of God be upon him) spoke". And as for whom it has
been further said: "Then he will proclaim among people:
Beware, this is the Messiah the liar, so whoever will follow
him, will be in fire, and whoever will disobey him, will be
in the garden." Now if it is true that it is only one man
who has raised his voice saying: "This is the Dajjal about
whom the Holy Prophet has spoken," and if this voice echoes
in the hearts of all Muslims today then, it must be
remembered that all that is written in the Hadith about this
truthful man must also be correct. It is written about him,
for example: "This man is the closest follower to me in
respect of position." Again it is written: "He is the
greatest man as a witness before the Lord of the world." To
recognise and proclaim the identity of Dajjal before the
world, is stated to be the most important evidence which a
Muslim can give, and that evidence was given, first of all,
by the Founder of the Ahmadiyyah Movement. Thus we are face
to face with a clear proposition. It is no use ignoring the
man who has disclosed to us the identity of Masih al-Dajjal
(the Antichrist) and waiting for another person to fulfil
the prophesy about the Promised Messiah. Indeed, it is
meaningless to keep on waiting, seeing that the person who
is described as "the nearest to me among the followers in
respect of position", must, of necessity, be the Messiah of
the ummah. This, of course, leaves the position of
the Companions, whose unparalleled sacrifices and close
association and intimacy with the Prophet are above all,
absolutely untouched.
Chapter 23:
The Promised Messiah and Killing of the Dajjal:
There is scarcely any man who
will deny that it was Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who
disclosed the identity of Dajjal and proclaimed: "This is
Dajjal about whom the Holy Prophet spoke." But some minds
feel uneasy when they see that whereas the Promised Messiah
was to kill the Dajjal, the Founder of the Ahmadiyyah
Movement did not actually kill him. True, the books of
Hadith do speak of the Promised Messiah killing the Dajjal,
but the question is what is meant by this killing? It is
evident that Dajjal is not a person, but a nation or rather
a group of nations. Thus the killing in question could not
mean the killing of a single person, nor yet the killing of
all the nations of Europe and America, seeing that it is
clearly stated in the Qur'an that these people will continue
to exist till the end of the world:
And (We) will make those who
follow thee (i.e. Jesus) above those who disbelieve to
the Day of Resurrection (3:55.).
This implies that both the followers
of Jesus as well as his opponents will continue to be in
existence till the end of the days. It is necessary,
therefore, to interpret the killing of Dajjal in a
metaphorical way and not take it too literally. As a matter
of fact, all that has been said of Dajjal is couched in
metaphorical expressions: his heaven not meaning actual
heaven; his fire not meaning actual hell-fire; his stream of
water and fire, his mountains of bread, his ass, his causing
showers of rain, his giving life to the dead, are all
metaphorical expressions. Hence his killing should also be
of a metaphorical nature.
If we read the relevant hadith,
speaking of the killing of Dajjal, we find therein various
indications showing what is really meant. Firstly, the words
used in respect of Dajjal in one hadith are that he will
melt away by himself, as salt melts away in water. If that
is so, the question of killing him does not arise at all.
Furthermore, it is stated in these same hadith: "Every
unbeliever whom his (the Promised Messiah's) breath reaches
will die; and his (Promised Messiah's) breath will go as far
as his sight goes."
Still another hadith related by Ahmad
ibn Hanbal states that the Muslims will kill the Dajjal,
which shows that the killing of Dajjal means a hard struggle
on the part of the Muslims to uproot his
falsehood.
Chapter 24:
The Dajjal is to be Killed but not Gog and Magog:
It has been shown that Dajjal
and Gog and Magog are only two names of the same people.
They are called Dajjal on account of their religious fraud
and deception, whereas they are called Gog and Magog on
account of their great political power. It is not easy to
understand why, while the Hadith speaks of the Promised
Messiah killing Dajjal, it also says that he will not be
able to kill Gog and Magog, whereas, as a matter of fact, if
Dajjal is killed, Gog and Magog must also be regarded as
killed. But says the hadith:
It will be revealed to the
Messiah that I have raised some of My servants, whom no
one will be able to kill but
Myself (Kanz
al-`Ummal Vol. 7, No. 3021.).
Again, in another hadith recorded in
Muslim it is said:
Then will come to Jesus a
people ... When he will be in this state, God will reveal
to Jesus saying: I have raised some of My servants, to
fight with whom nobody has any power; so take My servants
to the hills. And God will raise Gog and Magog and they
will sally forth from every elevated
place (Mishkat
Ch. al-Dajjal.).
Now, it is rather strange that
although Dajjal is killed and the breath of the Messiah
possesses such an efficacy that whomsoever it reaches from
among the unbelievers will be killed instantaneously; and
his breath again travels with his sight; yet Gog and Magog
are so powerful that those with the Messiah are instructed
to take refuge in a mountain. Instead of Gog and Magog dying
by the breath of the Messiah the latter seeks safety from
their invincible power; and we are told that even the
Messiah would have no power to fight with or kill Gog and
Magog. What then is the good of Dajjal being killed when
nations more powerful than Dajjal are there to take his
place. A consideration of all such hadith leads to but one
conclusion that the killing of Dajjal does not mean the
slaughter of a person, Dajjal himself not being an
individual but a group of nations; nor does it mean even the
vanquishment of these nations, because even after the
slaughter of Dajjal these people will continue to exist as
before, and the Messiah is told by God through revelation
that he cannot overpower them by fighting. All this clearly
shows that the mischiefs of these nations on the religious
side are termed the menace of Dajjal, because they will
seduce people away from the truth through deception; whereas
Gog and Magog represent their mischiefs on the political
side. That is why even after the slaughter of Dajjal, Gog
and Magog are found to survive.
It is clear from this that although
their religious mischiefs will be put to an end by the
Messiah, putting an end to their political mischiefs is not
included in the scope of this work. For this latter purpose,
other forces will come into play. Possibly this purpose will
be attained by their destruction of one another, as stated
in the Qur'an on one occasion: "On that day We shall let
some of them surge against
others"
(18:99.). In other words, they
would destroy one another, as the two World Wars have shown.
Or maybe, a considerable part of these people will escape
destruction by coming over to Islam, a possibility hinted at
in the words of the Prophet that the sun - the sun of Islam
- "will rise in the West," meaning that the truth of Islam
will manifest itself among the Western nations. Neither is
it unwarranted to hold that the Holy Prophet's seeing Dajjal
in his vision circumambulating the Sacred House, the Ka`bah,
is in reference to these people becoming Muslims in the long
run.
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