Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [16]
This made me nervous. “We can’t kill the Yajuj and Majuj? Not even with a gun?”
“Afraid not. From what I’ve heard, they’re supposed to take the Muslim world to the brink of extinction, and when they’ve done that, Dajjal will appear!”
Dajjal was the Islamic equivalent of the Antichrist.
“What does Dajjal look like?”
“He’ll be a regular man who will have one eye. Across his forehead the word KAFIR, or ‘unbeliever,’ will be written in black. He will be riding a donkey. He will come to the people and encourage them to abandon Allah. Those who listen to him will be given a Paradise on earth. To those who reject him, he will say, ‘I will make the world a hell for you.’ But righteous Muslims will reject him, seeking refuge from him in mosques, because he cannot enter a place where prayer is made. The Jews and Christians will become bound by his spell and because of submitting to him find glory in this world. Dajjal will be on their side. He will be their God, and he will tell them that he can make the sun rise from the west and they will believe him.”
The idea of a simple man, a man among us—riding a donkey, no less—dispensing the sort of justice I associated with Allah Azzawajal, filled me with terror. The tangibility and nearness of Dajjal’s presence—I imagined him offering me his earthly Paradise at the roundabout nearby—made me so nervous that I cannibalized my cuticles. But I couldn’t simply dismiss Dajjal to the distant future, because Ammi made it sound as if the arrival of Dajjal was imminent, if not already under way.
“If you look around the world, you’ll see that the Jews and Christians are glorious and powerful, while Muslims are persecuted and killed just for being Muslim.”
I reflected on her assessment, and it seemed to be based in reality. I had seen Full House and Sesame Street and Star Trek and Airwolf and Knight Rider on TV. Everything about the world of those people—those Christians—smacked of luxury. Ice cream whenever they wanted it; houses with air-conditioning; lights that never went out; cars that talked. The difference between them and us was evident: they were rich and had many possessions, while we were deprived. There was no way to explain this difference except to believe that they had given obeisance to Dajjal.
“Dajjal will rule the world for forty years,” Ammi continued. “Then there will be hope for Muslims. A man from Hijaz, whose name will be Muhammad, whose mother’s name will be Amina, and whose father’s name will be Abdullah—”
“Those were the names of the Prophet’s parents!” I shouted.
“Yes,” Ammi continued. “At the age of forty, which was the age at which the Prophet began receiving revelations of the Quran, this man will be leading a prayer at the Grand Mosque in Damascus. Suddenly the sky will split open. There will be a beam of light that touches the dome. In that beam, the Christian Prophet, Isa, will descend, wearing all white.”
“Isa is alive?” I exclaimed. “I thought he was crucified!”
“Yes, alive! He wasn’t crucified. Allah put Isa’s face over someone else, over a traitor, while he raised Isa to the fourth heaven,” Ammi clarified. “So Isa will come and stand before the congregation, and he will say, ‘I am Isa, son of Maryam, Prophet of God, and I am a Muslim. This man here is Muhammad, the mahdi, and you must follow him.’”
“The messiah!” I pumped my fist.
“The mahdi will step back and let Isa lead the prayer,” Ammi said. “But Isa will push him back to the front and say that he himself has come only to serve as a general and will fall in line behind the mahdi. They will finish the prayer and go east. Then they will start liberating the world. Isa will tell the Jews and Christians to believe in Islam, and many people will convert, but the stranglehold of Dajjal will be too strong for most people, and they will refuse. Isa will kill all of these nonbelievers. He will destroy them. If they hide behind a stone, the stones will bear witness against them and reveal them to Isa. If they hide behind a tree, the trees will bear witness against them