The concept of the anti-Christ is a Christian polemic against Jews for denying Jesus. Ahlul-Hadith (modern-day sunnis) adopted it.
Dajjal/Anti-Christ is he legit? [ 🧵]
Dajjal/Anti-Christ is he legit? [ 🧵]
https://twitter.com/juicyfulltoss/status/1773513673165652030
Eschatological summary:
Jews believed in the coming of a messiah
Jesus arrived claiming to be the messiah
A group of Jews sided with Jesus (later Christians), while another side claimed he wasn't the messiah and was false.
Jews believed in the coming of a messiah
Jesus arrived claiming to be the messiah
A group of Jews sided with Jesus (later Christians), while another side claimed he wasn't the messiah and was false.
Those that remained Jews still await for a messiah considering they denied Jesus. The Jews who accepted Jesus were Jewish followers of his. After his death, Paul opened the religion to non-Jews, leading to the acceptance of non-Jewish Christians.
Feuds between the Jews and Christians during the time of Jesus but things escalated when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Jews started telling stories like the Toledot Yeshu, Christians made anti-Jewish tropes in regards to the crucifixion
One of those tropes: The anti-Christ.
The hadith corpus has many narrations about the anti-Christ (descriptions, supplications, etc.)
The hadith corpus has many narrations about the anti-Christ (descriptions, supplications, etc.)
Some narrations say he is blind in the left eye, and many say he's blind in the right eye. When we diagram the narrations about the left eye, we find Muhammad b. Khazim al-Darir as the common-link source for the left-eye narrations.
The narrations of the dajjal are many, making it an early narration, but we get a better understanding when we look at the concept of the islamic anti-christ outside of the hadith corpus.
These narrators did not work in a vacuum. They traveled all throughout arabia...
These narrators did not work in a vacuum. They traveled all throughout arabia...
...in order to get their narrations. They, without a doubt, encountered Christians and Jews with stories of their own; and they line up perfectly with their narrations.
1- God will withhold rain:
Sahih Al-Jami’ as-Saghir, Number 7875.
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
Sahih Al-Jami’ as-Saghir, Number 7875.
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
2- Anti-Christ is marked on his face
Sahih Bukhari 1555
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
Sahih Bukhari 1555
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
3- hair/right-eye placement
Sahih Bukhari 5902
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
Sahih Bukhari 5902
Apocalypse of Pseudo-John
Why do all these commonalities in the hadith and the apocalypse of Pseudo-John, a non-canonical Christian text, exist?
It begins with a prophecy found in Dan.10.1-12.13
It begins with a prophecy found in Dan.10.1-12.13
In the old testament, Daniel 11:5 claims that a King in the South would be a mighty King. Daniel interprets this as battle between Seleucids and the Ptolemics, pseudo-John (being a very late text) actually depicts this to be the arabs.
To justify this, Pseudo-John (P-J) used Daniel 11:9-16 to justify the view that a King in the North would defeat the King in the South. P-J pretty much ignores the rest of the prophecy due the later portions contradicting the authors theological goal.
The King of the North is an allusion to the Umayyad dynasty and the King of the South is an allusion to the Zubayrid dynasty. Abd Al Malik of the Umayyads conquers the South and gets possession of Mecca because of it.
P-J attempts to back-project Islamic history using old testament prophecy and forcing a narrative that aligns with the events unfolding.
Source: The Bible in Arab Christianity p.78
Source: The Bible in Arab Christianity p.78
So how is this linked with the anti-Christ? :
When Jews denied Jesus, they expected (and still do) another person to arrive to be the real messiah. Anti-Jewish polemics from Christianity arose to say 'the one you're waiting for already came, and when he comes back again...
When Jews denied Jesus, they expected (and still do) another person to arrive to be the real messiah. Anti-Jewish polemics from Christianity arose to say 'the one you're waiting for already came, and when he comes back again...
...you're screwed'. This anti-Jewish polemic took many forms. One of them being: 'the one you're waiting for is not the messiah, but actually the anti-messiah that Jesus will defeat'. Hence many pseudo-gospels talking about an anti-Christ in later texts.
When the Arabs increased in power after the death of Muhammad, the Christian Roman empire battled the new Umayyads, which caused Christian writers to back-project prophecies about Umayyads defeating the Zubayrids in P-J.
Hadith narrators came in contact with people who knew these gospels (since they traveled to Arab-conquered roman lands) and used these gospels (like p-j) as inspiration for their hadith on the dajjal.
The Umayyads continued to make more narrations about the dajjal, even writing an epic about how Jesus would descend in Damascus (Umayyad capital) and defeat the anti-Christ (check out, already analyzed)
https://x.com/HadithCritic/status/1758513696064557564?s=20
So, in a short summary-
the anti-Christ originated with Christians who didn't like the idea that Jesus wasn't accepted by Jews. Anti-Jewish scripture were created to create a figure that was demeaning and would make Jesus an ultimate authority in defeating him.
the anti-Christ originated with Christians who didn't like the idea that Jesus wasn't accepted by Jews. Anti-Jewish scripture were created to create a figure that was demeaning and would make Jesus an ultimate authority in defeating him.
Christians made stories about the anti-Christ which then led to Muslim hadith narrators coming into contact with people who had such knowledge of the anti-Christ, and they incorporated it into the religion via hadith, fabricating isnads back to the Prophet.
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