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Thursday 1 March 2012

Alarm of the Day of Judgment -- Part 6

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan Sounds Alarm of the Day of Judgment -- Part 6
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
The interpretations of the Quran and hadith suggest that the Day of Judgment will be close on the heels of Gog and Magog. A long hadith narrated by Masnad Ahmad and Ibn-e-Maja deals with Gog and Magog. It says, “The Day of Judgment will be so close at the time of the appearance of Gog and Magog that it will be like the condition of a pregnant woman expecting delivery whose family members do not know what time of day or night she might deliver.”
The appearance of Gog and Magog and the circumstances unfolding subsequently are not simple affairs. It will be the final warning before the end of history. In this period such situations and circumstances will unfold that will felicitate the propagation of the Truth in the best and final form. In other words, before the last buggle, it will be the voice of daawah. The mischief of dajjal will appear in this situation meaning that man has lost the justification for another opportunity to live on the earth any longer.
Great happening in history
The development following the appearance of Gog and Magog will be an important incident in history in terms of its fallout. It will be for the first time that after this revolution, nature will become an object to be conquered rather than to be an object of worship. As a result, the earth will give out its treasures, a prediction made in a hadith:
“The earth will give out all its possessions keeping nothing to herself”. (Ibn-e-Maja, Kitabul fitan). This process of discovering the material secrets of nature will be done by the western scientists. These scientists will be totally secular. They will be completely indifferent to nature. Their approach to religion will be neither negative nor positive. Nevertheless, the philosophers and thinkers will use their research for their own purposes. Therefore, they will form two groups --- secular thinkers and religious thinkers. After the birth of the scientific age, the vices that were born in the world were not the outcome of science itself but of atheism.
The appearance of dajjal
The origin of the word dajjal is dajal that means to deceive. Da’jal means one who deceives. Dajjal is the exaggerated form meaning the great deceiver. That’s the reason, putting the gold coating on anything was called dajal. For example, dajal-al- ina means putting a gold coating on a non-golden plate to make it appear golden. The person to appear in the later period was called dajjal because he will perform dajal on facts. He will try to deceive people by misinterpreting facts. In intellectual matters, the other word for dajal is misinterpretation. What is misinterpretation?
Misinterpretation: an incorrect or false explanation
The process of dajal has always remained at work in the world but the invention of printing press and the media has promoted the opportunities of dajal in the modern age. If in the olden days people could perform dajal only on a small scale, in the modern age it became possible for them to commit it on a large scale. Dajjal is not the name of some mysterious creature. It is, in fact, the bigger form of the simpler and smaller dajal of the old age. In reality, it is the other name of the person making a negative use of the opportunities created by Gog and Magog.
In the books of hadith, there are many traditions about the future. One of them says that in the final period, a Dajjal will be born. At the same time, a person from among the Muslims will rise who will become the ‘hajeej’ (One who presents counter arguments) against Dajjal and will, therefore, destroy him (Sahih Muslim, Kitabul fitan). It will be the greatest event of history. Therefore, the tradition according to Sahih Muslims states this in following words.
“It will be the greatest gawahi (deposition) before God.” The literal meaning of dajjal is great deceiver. He will not do his work with a sword. The act of deceiving is done with arguments, not with a sword. Therefore, dajjal will mislead people with the help of his knowledge and arguments. He will mislead people intellectually. The person who will rise to counter his misinterpretations is called ‘hajeej’ in Sahih Muslim. Lisanul Arab describes the meaning of the word in the following words:
One who can overcome in the argument.
According to hadiths, k f r (kufr) will be written on dajjal’s forehead (Sahih Muslim, Kitabul fitan). It suggests that the period in which dajjal will be born will be one of disbelief in God.

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