The Gist of Your Fourth Question
After Jesus (Upon whom be peace) kills the Antichrist (Dajjal) at the end of time, most people will enter the true religion. But it says in some narrations: The end of the world will not occur as long as there remain on the earth people who say, Allah! Allah! So how after most people have come to believe, will they become unbelievers?
The Answer: Some people whose belief is weak regard as unlikely what is narrated in the sound Hadith: Jesus (Upon whom be peace) will come and will act in accordance with the Shari‘a of Islam. He will kill the Dajjal. But when its meaning is explained, it is seen that there is nothing unlikely about it. It is as follows:
What this Hadith and those about the Sufyan and the Mahdi mean is this: at the end of time two atheistic movements will gain strength.
One of Them: Behind a screen of duplicity, a fearsome individual named the Sufyan will deny the messengership of Muhammad (UWBP), and coming to lead the dissemblers, will try to destroy the Islamic Shari‘a. To oppose him, a luminous individual called Muhammad Mahdi of the Family of the Prophet (UWBP) will assume leadership of the people of sainthood and perfection, who are bound to the luminous line of the Prophet’s (UWBP) Family, and he will kill the current of dissemblers, which will consist of the collective personality of the Sufyan, and scatter it.
The Second Current: A tyrannical movement born of naturalist philosophy will gradually grow strong at the end of time and spread by means of materialist philosophy, going so far as to deny Allah the Most High. A savage who does not recognize the king or accept that the officers and soldiers in the army are his soldiers ascribes a sort of kingship and rulership to everyone and to all the soldiers.
In just the same way, the members of that movement, who deny Allah the Most High, each ascribes dominicality to his soul like a little Nimrod. And the greatest of them, the Dajjal, who will come to lead them, will manifest awesome wonders, a sort of spiritualism and hypnosis; he will go even further, and imagining his tyrannical, superficial rule to be a sort of dominicality, he will proclaim his divinity. It is clear just what foolish buffoonery it is for impotent man, who may be defeated by a fly and cannot create even a fly’s wing, to claim divinity.
At that point, just when the movement appears to be very strong, the religion of true Christianity, which comprises the collective personality of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), will emerge. That is, it will descend from the skies of divine mercy. Present‑day Christianity will be purified in the face of that reality; it will cast off superstition and distortion, and unite with the truths of Islam. Christianity will in effect be transformed into a sort of Islam. Following the Qur’an, the collective personality of Christianity will be in the rank of follower, and Islam, in that of leader. True religion will become a mighty force as a result of its joining it.
Although defeated before the atheistic movement while separate, as a result of their union Christianity and Islam will acquire the capability to defeat and rout it. Then the person of Jesus (Upon whom be peace), who is present with his human body in the world of the heavens, will come to lead the current of true religion, as, relying on the promise of One Powerful Over All Things, the Bringer of Sure News has said. Since he has told of it, it is true, and since the One Powerful Over All Things has promised it, He will certainly bring it about.
Indeed, it is not far from the wisdom of the All‑Wise One of Glory who all the time sends the angels to the earth from the heavens, sometimes in human form – like Gabriel appearing in the form of Dihya– and sends spirit beings from the Spirit World making them appear in human form, and even sends the spirits of most of the dead saints to the world with similitudes of their bodies, it would not be far from His Wisdom – even if he were not alive and present with his body in the skies of the world and had truly died and departed for the furthest corner of the hereafter – to clothe Jesus (Upon whom be peace) in his body and send him to the world, so to bring the religion of Jesus to a fitting conclusion; for such a momentous result. Indeed He promised it because His wisdom required it to be thus, and since He promised it, He will most certainly send him.
When Jesus (Upon whom be peace) comes, not everyone will know him to be the true Jesus. His elect and those close to him will recognize him through the light of belief. It will not be self‑evident so that everyone will recognize him.
Question: There are narrations which say: The Dajjal has a false paradise where he sends those who follow him, and he also has a false hell into which he casts those who do not follow him. He has even made one of his mount’s ears into a paradise and the other one into a hell; his body is of such‑and-such vast dimensions; they describe him like this?
The Answer: The Dajjal superficially resembles a human being. But he is arrogant and pharaoh‑like and has forgotten Allah the Most High, so is a foolish satan and intriguing man who calls his superficial, tyrannical rule divinity. But his atheistic movement, his collective personality, is truly vast. The awesome descriptions of the Dajjal in the narrations allude to that. At one time, the commander‑in-chief of the Japanese army was depicted with one foot in the Pacific Ocean and the other ten days’ distance away in Port Arthur. The collective personality of the commander-in-chief’s army was illustrated by depicting him in that way.
The Dajjal’s false paradise consists of the alluring amusements and enticements of civilization. His mount is means of transport like the railway; at one end of the train is the fire‑box which sometimes sprays fire on those who do not follow him. The other of the mount’s ears, that is, the other end of it, has been furnished like Paradise, where he seats his followers. Anyway, the railway, an important mount of sinful, cruel civilization, brings a false paradise for the dissolute and the worldly, while for the people of religion and Islam like the angels of Hell it brings dangers in the hand of civilization, and casts them into captivity and indigence.
For sure, when the true religion of Christianity emerges and is trans‑ formed into Islam, it will spread its light to the great majority of people in the world, but when the end of the world approaches, an atheistic movement will again appear and become dominant. According to the rule, The word is with the majority,” no one will remain on earth who says, “Allah! Allah!; that is, “Allah! Allah!” will not be uttered by any significant group that holds an important position on the earth.
The people of truth will form a minority or will be defeated, but they will remain permanently till the end of the world. Only, the moment Doomsday occurs, as a token of divine mercy, the spirits of the believers will be seized first so that they do not see the terrors of the Last Day, and it will break forth over the unbelievers.