Sunday, February 21, 2016

Maometis al-Mahdi and Islamic Eschatology

This somewhat spins off from my Seventh Day Adventist post.

If you really want to twist the text of Revelation 13 to allude to a day of the week, the Sixth Day is what makes sense, 666 being a multiple of 6.  And I've observed reasons before to thematically link this part of Revelation 13 to Genesis 2 and Adam's creation.

The Antichrist would presumably be taking titles of Christ for himself.  One of those is The Last Adam.  Gnosticism and Kabbalah have given the Last Adam concept their own special meanings.

Islam interestingly does call for weekly observance on Friday to commemorate the creation of Adam.  Because Islam has actually canonized the Apocryphal legend that God ordered The Angels to worship Adam.
Main article: Jumu'ah
The Quran acknowledges a six-part Creation period (32:4, 50:38) and the Biblical Sabbath as the seventh-day (yaum as-Sabt: 2:65, 4:47, 154, 7:163, 16:124), but Allah's mounting the throne after Creation is taken in contradistinction to Elohim's concluding and resting from his labors, and so Muslims replace Sabbath rest with jumu'ah (Arabic جمعة ). Also known as "Friday prayer", jumu'ah is a congregational prayer (salat) held every Friday (the Day of Assembly), just after midday, in place of the otherwise daily dhuhr prayer; it commemorates the creation of Adam on the sixth day, as a loving gathering of Adam's sons. The Quran states: "When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday, hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business: That is best for you if ye but knew" (62:9). The next verse ("When the prayer is ended, then disperse in the land ...") leads many Muslims not to consider Friday a rest day, as in Indonesia, which regards the seventh-day Sabbath as unchanged; but many Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh, do consider Friday a nonwork day, a holiday or a weekend; and other Muslim countries, likePakistan, count it as half a rest day (after the Friday prayer is over). Jumu'ah attendance is strictly incumbent upon all free adult males who are legal residents of the locality.
I remain highly skeptical of the Islamic Antichrist theory, but this is an interesting observation.

What has become the standard way of making the Mark of the Beast point to Islam Chris White has thoroughly debunked.
http://bibleprophecytalk.com/bpt-thoughts-on-walid-shoebats-mark-of-the-beast-theory/

The proper interpretation of the Number of The Beast has been applied to Muhammad.  Maometis being a Greek rendering of his name that has a Gemetria value of 666.
MuAlphaOmicronMuEpsilonTauIotaSigmaTOTAL
4017040530010200666
Critics of that theory say the proper Greek rendering of Muhammad should be Maometh or Mouchoumet.  But those were contemporary Byzantine Greek transliterations.  A NT era Greek rendering in the rules of Koine Greek would have to end with a Sigma being a male proper name of foreign origin.  This rule of Koine Greek is the reason we are used to having an S at the end of Jesus and Moses.  David Thorn should have remembered this.

The concept of The Mahdi is not in The Koran.  During his lifetime Muhammad saw himself as the last awaited Prophet besides the return of Jesus.  While much is often made of that the Koran and traditional Islamic doctrine don't call Muhammad a Messiah and give that title only to Jesus.  The fact is early on when he was trying to appeal to Jews he did play up to their Messianic Expectations which were very high following the death of Nehemiah Ben-Hushiel who they were convinced at that time was Messiah Ben-Joseph, and so next in line must be Elijah The Prophet and then Ben-David.

Muhammad was definitely an antichrist because he denied the deity of Christ and the relationship of The Father and The Son.

The Mahdi concept began developing in Islam after the Second Civil War from 680-692 AD.

In the Hadiths the only Mahdi Prophecy attributed directly to Muhammad, and thus arguably the most important, if only one detail is accurate it must be that one.  Is...
His name will be my name, and his father’s name my father’s name[6]
Even if the entire duration of the world’s existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before Doomsday, Allah will expand that day to such length of time as to accommodate the kingdom of a person from my Ahlul-Bayt who will be called by my name. He will fill out the earth with peace and justice as it will have been full of injustice and tyranny (by then).[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]
So the most important fact about the Mahdi is him having Muhammad's name.  I don't think that has to be someone's birth name for them to successfully convince people they're The Mahdi, he'd probably just change his name to make it fit him.

The Twelver doctrine of Shia Islam believes the Mahdi is Muhammad ibin Hassan who was born in 869 AD and they believe entered Occultation in 874 AD.  So that further links the name of Muhammad to the Mahdi.

Even back when I leaned heavily towards a version of the Mahdi view, I disliked many aspects of how many Christians like Perry Stone promoted it.  Especially making ad-Dajjal a good guy, (Chris White in his criticisms seems familiar only with people making Dajjal Jesus, but Stone and most I read made him Elijah/Two Witnesses)  The Bible foretells many Antichrists, and indeed plenty of people who'd be an Antichrist to Christians would be to Muslims as well, especially if he claims to be Messiah Ben-Joseph.  I also generally suspected it would be a Sunni claimant not the Shia Twelfth Imam fixation.

I even went back and forth on the Isa=False Prophet connection.  On the one hand I have argued independent of the Mahdi theory that the False Prophet will claim to be Jesus and right now think that's most likely who he'll claim to be.  But on the other hand in the Koran Duhl-Qarnayn which means "two horned" kinda fits the Second Beast's description.  Among the theories of those rejecting the traditional Alexander The Great identification are that he was Cyrus and also Messiah Ben-Joseph.  Britam has argued Cyrus was a type of Messiah Ben-Joseph, and Yair Davidy told me personally in an email many Rabbinic Jews are open to Ben-Joseph and Elijah being the same, since Elijah was of Manasseh.  In the same Sura is the story of Al-Khadir which some view as linked.  Al-Khadir is clearly based on a Rabbinic story about Elijah.

I now, still, even after all I feel compelled to observe here do not think the Mahdi model is the most likely.  What I do believe is all the messianic exceptions of false religions (including heretical Judeo-Christian traditions) are potential seeds for The Antichrist planted by Satan who I think himself doesn't know exactly how things will play out.  And obviously does not necessarily want them to play out how The Bible says anyway.  None of these false Prophecies account for the Abomination of Desolation event because that is when the deception ends and things become open Satanism.

I likewise even now as a critic of the Mahdi theory have issues with many common arguments against it including Chris White's.

I enjoy Chris White's video on the origins of Islamic Eschatology.  But I disagree with the idea that this natural development of the idea contradicts a Satanic subconscious influence.  Especially since The Last Roman Emperor tradition is EVEN MORE OBVIOUSLY based on The Antichrist.  And there is another factor to the figure's origin he leaves out, it was probably originally about the Third Abbasid Caliph, predictions made by people then who felt they were in the End Times. 

Biblically The Antichrist is the Last Roman Emperor (I know that White disagrees with that).  And he's also said to be Greek fitting how Chris White interprets Daniel 8.

Chris White also obsesses over seeing Daniel 11:40 as the key to recognizing The Antichrist.  I have come to reject that Prophecy being Antichrist relevant at all.  But even so as White was describing The Last Roman Emperor he records how he's supposed to conquer Syria and Egypt and doesn't even stop to comment on that similarity.

Meanwhile White elsewhere tries to use Daniel 11:40 against an Islamic Antichrist by saying "why would he be waging war with all these Islamic countries".  It comes off as ignorant of contemporary geo-politics where they're at war with each other all the time.  But also the Mahdi prophecies include statements that...
  • The vast majority of people who profess to be Muslim will be so only in name despite their practice of Islamic rites and it will be they who make war with the Mahdi.
Sunnis and Shiites both include the other in this fake Muslim category.  And there is also the figure of Sufyani who will rule much of Syria and possibly some of Iraq fitting the King of The North.  Who is said to be the first enemy The Mahdi will defeat.

And White's logic here hurts his own theory, because the Messiah Ben-Joseph tradition entered it's modern form in that exact same cultural context, largely inspired by Nehemiah Ben-Hushiel.

Another thing White could have mentioned is how The Antichrist having a darkened right eye probably has it's roots in Zechariah 11:17.

I used to be confused by how the traditional Jewish Messiah aspect of Al-Maish ad-Dajja fits with the Koran and other oldest sources saying he'll first emerge in Iraq (between Syria and Persia).  But as I've learned more about the historical context of Muhammad's life, I've learned there were attempts by the Davidic Jewish Exilarchs in Babylon to rebel against the Sasanian Empire and create an independent Jewish state in Mesopotamia.

Dajjal leading a migration of Jews from Persian territory to Israel has me thinking the best parallel for him in the Book of Revelation is the Kings of The East.

Perry Stone thinks all Muslims expect the Mahdi to emerge in Iraq because he's basing his acknowledge on local tradition and local Iraqi Muslims fighting with each other.  No Sunni Muslims outside Iraq expect him to emerge there.  The only thing geographically agreed upon is he'll be first acknowledged in Mecca.

I'm also curious about the traditions that ad-Dajjal will die in Lud.  Because in the Toldoth Yeshu traditions (Jewish anti-christian parodies of the Gospel narrative) Yeshu was stoned on the eve of Passover in Lud.  Which has it's roots in what Talmud Sanhedrin 67a says about Ben-Stada.  Is it possible Muhammad or other early Muslims were influenced by the developing Yeshu traditions?  He certainly showed familiarity with the Talmud elsewhere.

I believe there will be decoy Antichrists.  It's possible there will be Jewish and Muslim would be Messiahs waging war with each other each accusing the other of being The Antichrist, and maybe neither of those will be the real deal.  I still strongly think I.S.I.S. could be the Assyrian.

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