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Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:49:48 -0000
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Subject: [remnantsounds] Islam's End Time Teachings 
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Ariel Sharon: Messenger of Abrahamic Apocalypse? 
Consider his controversial visit to a contested Jerusalem holy site 
from a Muslim end-times perspective

By Gershom Gorenberg 

Fa'iq Da'ud was expecting trouble at Jerusalem's Temple Mount in 2000-
-or as he'd say, at al-Haram al-Sharif.
In fact, the violence that exploded at the world's most contested 
holy site this fall, and which ignited ongoing battles between 
Israelis and Palestinians, is only a pale glimmer next to Da'ud's 
apocalyptic visions--visions that shed light on a dangerous, often-
ignored side of the Mount's place in the religious imagination of 
three faiths.

For Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the 36-acre hilltop plaza is 
not only at the center of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, it is also 
center stage for the Last Days.

Da'ud's book, "The Great Events Preceding the Appearance of the 
Mahdi," was on sale at Islamic bookstores around the West Bank last 
year. The cover of the Arabic tract shows an aerial photo of the 
Haram--Dome of the Rock mosque at the center, Al-Aqsa mosque to one 
side.

Next to it is a picture of a model of the Jewish Temple, superimposed 
on the same site, replacing both mosques. Inside, Da'ud portrays a 
vast conspiracy of Jews and Christians that, he says, intends to 
build the Third Temple to prepare the way for the arrival of their 
shared messiah, who he says is the Antichrist. Yet he finds hope in 
the threat to Islam's shrines: It heralds history's final battles and 
the coming of the Mahdi, the true redeemer.

It's a dark fantasy but hardly unique. Moreover, Da'ud is just one of 
the writers who, in recent years, have produced a new, popular genre 
of Islamic works on impending apocalypse.

The books look forward to Islam's victory over the West. Ironically, 
though, they draw directly on the end-times literature of 
conservative Christians--including dispensationalists' expectation 
that the Third Temple will soon be built on its ancient site, 
ushering in the Last Days and Jesus' return to earth.

Underlying this strange symbiosis is a shared view of history: As a 
grand drama, scripted in advance by the Divine Playwright, and due to 
reach its denouement any day--in beleaguered Jerusalem.

This view of the future has a long past. The monotheistic religions' 
idea of the End of Days dates back to the prophets of ancient Israel, 
for whom Jerusalem was the center not only of their world but of 
God's. When the Romans razed the Second Temple in 70 C.E., Judaism 
assigned rebuilding it to the unknown time of the messiah, thereby 
making the Temple a symbol of the End of Days.
Meanwhile, Christianity wove its vision of the end out of Jewish 
materials and the New Testament's promise that Jesus would return to 
the city of his crucifixion.

Most strikingly, Islam reworked the traditions of its older sisters 
to also promise that Jerusalem would be the capital of the messianic 
age.

The idea of the End need not--and, I'd argue, should not--be read 
with blind literalism. It is better seen as providing an image of the 
perfected world to which we must aspire without expecting to get 
there. But the temptation to treat end-time prophecies literally is 
particularly seductive when a great drama is played out on the stage 
of the Holy Land.

For a century, the return of Jews to their homeland and the Arab-
Israeli conflict has presented just such a drama. And so, one segment 
of Orthodox Jewry regards the Jewish state as the "first flowering" 
of redemption. For those Jews, Israel's stunning victory in the 1967 
Six-Day War--symbolized by a colonel's battlefield announcement 
that "the Temple Mount is in our hands"--turned expectations into 
ecstasy. At the extreme edge of this camp are the impatient activists 
who want to build the Temple.

Christians of the dispensationalist school have likewise seen 
Israel's establishment and the 1967 victory as fulfilling biblical 
promises--but look forward to a very different denouement:

The Antichrist helps the Jews build the Temple, then desecrates it. 
Catastrophes shake the world; Jews either accept Christianity or die; 
Jesus returns. In books, videos, and internet pages, 
dispensationalists often magnify the importance of Jewish Temple 
activists a thousandfold--as "proof" that the next act of the 
prophetic pageant is about to begin.

Out of fear rather than hope, Muslims have also overestimated Jewish 
interest in the Temple. Israel's conquest of Jerusalem's Old City 
(where the Mount is located) turned up the anxiety--even though the 
Jewish state left the Islamic shrines untouched and under Muslim 
administration. Events such as the 1984 arrest of a Jewish 
underground that had plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock fueled 
the fears. 

Thus, the Haram has become an icon of Palestinian nationalism, and 
the trauma of the conflict with Israel has helped produce a new 
Islamic apocalyptic vision, first portrayed in Egyptian writer Sa'id 
Ayyub's 1987 book, "Al-Masih Al-Dajjal--The Antichrist."

Ayyub, says David Cook, who has researched this literature deeply, 
uses "the Christian messianic fantasy...that Israel's existence is a 
sign of the End" for his own purposes. Ayyub portrays a Jewish 
Antichrist at the center of a conspiracy seeking world domination. 
And as the apocalyptic scenario unfolds, he says, "The dwelling place 
of the Jewish prophet"--the Antichrist--will be in the Temple in 
Jerusalem."
Ayyub's book, says Cook, was a "runaway hit," and other writers 
followed his lead, producing hundreds of tracts. One of those 
disciples is Fa'iq Da'ud, whose puts Christians and Jews together in 
the plot against Al-Aqsa.

Estimating the impact of Muslim apocalyptic writers isn't easy, since 
their followers haven't established separate movements. But the 
popularity of Ayyub's original work, followed by the other tracts in 
the same genre, suggests a degree of grass-roots influence. One 
book, "The End of Israel 2022" by Sheikh Bassam Jirrar, has sold 
30,000 copies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and among Israeli Arabs--
equivalent to 2 million copies in the U.S.

That hardly means there's a copy on every Muslim's shelf. Jamil 
Hamami, an east Jerusalem graduate of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, 
foremost center of religious study for Sunni Muslims, has never heard 
of Ayyub and rejects Jirrar's theories. Yet he doesn't deny that 
apocalypse is in the air. Interest among Palestinians in signs of the 
Hour can't be measured, he says, but "people are talking about it, in 
universities, in schools."

To make sense of all this, picture apocalyptic believers seated in a 
triangular theater around the stage of Jerusalem. All agree that 
history's last act is being played out, but they hold different 
programs. Jewish Temple activists--bit players in real life--have 
starring roles in the Christian play; Jews and Christians alike 
unknowingly play in the Muslim script. Hope and fear are the sound 
system, wildly amplifying every word, every footstep. Small actions 
at the Temple Mount take on significance that nonbelievers--such as 
secular politicians and analysts--neither expect nor understand.

Now consider how Israeli hardliner Ariel Sharon's late-September 
visit to the Mount would have looked to anyone who'd read Ayyub or 
Da'ud. Consider as well how it might appear now that polls show 
Sharon way ahead of Ehud Barak in the race to become Israel's prime 
minister.

What's more, the ideas of those expecting the End have impact beyond 
their own ranks. Last year, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, the grand 
mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, appointed by Yasser Arafat, told me 
he rejected setting a date for the Hour, as Muslims call the End.

But he said Da'ud's book had value because "it makes clear the 
dangers to Al-Aqsa mosque."

Viewing Jerusalem as the stage of the End warps perception of 
political events, creates expectations of absolute victories, makes 
battles glorious instead of tragic. But it is certainly not the only 
religious view of Jerusalem's sorrows.

Those who regard life as more sacred than soil, who believe that God 
commands us "to seek peace and pursue it," must reject the 
apocalyptic vision and insist that the faiths can live together in 
the Holy City.




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