Dajjal: The war
The Dajjal! An intriguing name. In the Islamic world, this name is equivalent to the Antichrist in Christianity. A figure from the end times who pretends to be the Messiah, later claims divinity, and is eventually killed by the final savior. Before discussing the Dajjal, a preface about the final savior must be mentioned. Muhammad, peace be upon him, the Prophet of God, like Jesus, was from the lineage of Abraham. Jesus descended from Abraham through Isaac, and Muhammad through Abraham’s other son, Ishmael. With the same premise that after every major prophet like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, a group of prophets would preach the religion of the previous major prophet, the question arises: who would expound upon and promote the religion of Muhammad, the last prophet? Among Shia Muslims, the Imams replaced him, being on par with him but without bringing a new religion, and no miracles were revealed from them to humanity. Muhammad, peace be upon him, said in a hadith (a saying from him that is not divine revelation but is truthful) that the final savior will be the 12th individual from his family.
According to Shia belief, Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was the first Imam, and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan (also called al-Mahdi), who shares the Prophet’s name, is the final savior and the 12th Imam from his descendants. The key point here is that this Imam was born around 1300 years ago and then went into a long occultation, during which God removed the limitations of decay from him, keeping him hidden from most people’s sight. The reason for this was the oppressive rulers of that time, who sought to kill him.
I will elaborate more on this later, but in short, he is alive and among us. We call him Mahdi, meaning the “Guided One.” According to our firm beliefs, he will reappear along with his Abrahamic cousin, Jesus, the son of Mary, the Christian prophet, and they will fill the world with justice. He is the final savior promised by all religions.
Now, about the Dajjal…
The Dajjal will appear in the end times, claiming to be the savior of all, though his right eye is blind, and his defining feature is his left eye, which sits in the middle of his forehead. According to the sayings of Ali, peace be upon him, the Dajjal will distribute food among people using a large apparatus. Eventually, the Dajjal will settle in Palestine (or the occupied parts of it, known as the West of Israel), where he will rule for a time before being killed by Mahdi and Jesus. The question arises: could the Dajjal be a group or a criminal gang whose characteristic is their left eye, and their center of power in Israel? The Dajjal, of course, is the source of a corrupt empire. But if we stop considering the Dajjal as an individual, does he not exist in other moments? In my opinion, while the Dajjal will undoubtedly appear as an individual, we will find traces of him in every war, killing, and corruption. Surely, the Dajjal will not be alone; he will have supporters and followers. According to the hadiths, he will claim divinity in Jerusalem and be killed after forty days or forty years. He will be present in every bloodshed, when you organize a crime, when you tell a great lie that secures your empire’s interests, when you create corrupt financial networks to assist you in your crimes — Dajjal is there! Dajjal is there until the day he arrives to rule over the corruption that his followers have been plotting for years. I will speak in the future about the appearance of the final promised savior and the ways to reach that…
