The Return of Jesus (part 5 of 5)
Description: The end of Gog and Magog, followed by peace and plenty, a world without war, the universality of God’s True Religion, and the death of Jesus.
- By Jeremy Boulter (© 2006 IslamReligion.com)
- Published on 19 Jun 2006
- Last modified on 12 Dec 2016
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The End of Gog and Magog
When the Gog and Magog will have driven the Muslims to hole up in their strongholds and refuges, and when they see the blood on their weapons, which will have returned from the sky, they will take these as evidence for their imminent victory over the Muslims. However, that evening:
"Jesus and his companions will beseech God, and God will send against them (the Gog and Magog) worms which will attack their necks; and in the morning, they will all perish as one." (Saheeh Muslim)
Not knowing that the horde was already destroyed, the Muslims in their strongholds will call for a volunteer to scout out what the enemy was doing. The volunteer, knowing he would probably die, will descend to find them all dead, lying on top of one another. Returning, he will call out: ‘O Muslims, rejoice! God has sufficed us against our enemies!’[1]
When Jesus and the people who took refuge on Mount Tur descend, they will find the same scene, with not a single spot of the earth around them free of the putrefying stench of rotting bodies. So sickening and dangerous to health will be the situation that Jesus will pray again to God, Who will send huge birds to carry them off[2] and throw them into the sea where the sun rises.
The Aftermath
After that, God will send a drenching, intense rain that penetrates into everything, lasting forty days. Unlike the Deluge,[3] this torrential rainfall will be beneficial, for:
"The earth will be washed till it looks like a mirror. God will then order the earth: ‘Bring forth your fruit and restore your blessing.’" (Saheeh Muslim)
The Muslims will let their cattle and flocks out to graze again, and they will fatten up better than from any vegetation they had fed on before.[4] Orchards will produce fruit of size and quality never known before, and cattle produce fine quality milk in copious amounts, enough so that nobody will experience any shortage of it.[5]
The benefits, then, from the advent of the Gog and Magog, will the decimation of non-believers, leaving the world for a nation of the believers, and food in abundance after the earth had absorbed all the dead decaying bodies caused by their invasion and later extermination. For a period of time, wealth would be so abundant that people would not be able to find those to whom they could pay out the poor due.[6] Abu Hurayrah reported the Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, as saying:
"…And there will be no Jizya. Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it (in charity)." (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
Not so beneficial will be the reduction in the numbers of men, causing a major imbalance in the sex ratio. Women will far exceed the men in numbers, possibly due to casualties in war, as was the case in Germany after World War Two.[7]
The Reign and Death of Jesus
The reign of Jesus, may God grant him peace, will be by the Law that Muhammad brought. This is in accordance with the Covenant that God took from all his prophets. In the Quran, it says:
Behold! God took the Covenant of the prophets, saying: "I have given you the Book and Wisdom; then will come a messenger to you confirming what is with you, so believe in him and render him help." God said: "Do you agree, and take this Covenant as binding upon you?" They said: "We agree." He said: "Then bear witness! And I am with you among the witnesses." (Quran 3:81)
The reign of Jesus, therefore, will be according to the Covenant with God, and this is backed up by an explanation of the saying of the Prophet by Abu Hurayrah, when he reported a question he had asked to his companions. He said:
The Messenger of God said, "What would you do when the son of Mary descends among you, and lead as one among you?"
One of the companions, Ibn Abu Theeb, asked:
What does, ‘He will lead as one among you’ mean?
Abu Hurayrah replied:
"He will lead you according to the Book of your Lord, exalted and praised is He, and the Way of your Messenger."[8]
His reign will be marked by mutual respect, peace and prosperity among the people. In another hadeeth, Abu Hurayrah said:
"Spite, mutual hatred and jealousy against one another will disappear, and when he (Jesus) summons people to accept wealth, none will do so." (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
The lack of rancor between people will be absolute, not relative, for at least seven years, wherein no two people would be stirred to ire towards each other,[9] and the word between them would be ‘peace’. In fact, religiosity and piety will be the order of the day, for to each person:
"A single prostration to God (in prayer) will be better than the whole world and whatever is in it." (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
Jesus himself will not only rule and judge by the Muslim Shariah, he will complete all the Islamic pillars. The Prophet of Islam said:
"By him in Whose hand my life is, the son of Mary will certainly invoke the name of God for Hajj or Umrah[10] or both in the valley of Rauha (a valley near Medina)." (Saheeh Muslim)
Then, forty years after his second coming, he will die, and the Muslims will perform the funeral prayer for him.[11] And this moment is the moment God is referring to in the Quranic verse:
"And there is none of the People of the Book who must believe in him before his death…" (Quran 4:159)
God willing, all the people will be of one Book at that time.
Conclusion
As we can see, the return of Jesus to the Earth will be a truly magnificent event, surrounded by truly magnificent incidents, so magnificent that one may find it even fantasy-like. Jesus will come at a time when the world is in true need of Divine Help. Indeed this Divine Help will come with Jesus, but some of the trials of those days will be so great that not even he will be able to face it, fleeing to the tops of mounts with his followers. Only God will be able to save humanity in that time. Albeit, not only will this Divine Help come to put an end to the greatest trials faced by humankind since the dawn of time – the False Messiah and Gog and Magog - but it will also come to show the truth about God, putting an end to all falsehood, with everyone being united under the one true religion of God.
Footnotes:
[1] Musnad Ahmed.
[2] Saheeh Muslim
[3]The Deluge that descended upon the people of Noah.
[4] Musnad Ahmed
[5] Saheeh Muslim
[6] ibid
[7] The shortage of men was so acute that the international youth conference held in Munich in 1948 suggested polygyny as a solution for women left on the shelf.
[8] Saheeh Muslim
[9] Saheeh Muslim
[10] These are the Greater and Lesser Pilgrimages to the Holy Sanctuary in Mecca, the former being an obligatory ritual pillar of Islam.
[11] Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, said "He (Jesus) will live on the earth forty years and then he will die. The Muslims will pray over him at his funeral prayer." In Musnad Ahmed and Abu Dawood
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