Category: The Deceiver

Series Navigation
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]
.o0o.
Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?
Manipulation of Prophecy The Future and YOU
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Peace unto those who seek peace,

Allah willing you have considered our arguments and hints. To resume from where we left off our first question was whether we could find a divine unit of measurement, a period, by which to measure human communities and affairs through history. The period is a divinely mandated length and we found that the human generation was that unit of measurement: a constant value for all of humanity.

A generation does not yet give us a precise enough measurement unless we have a way of measuring a generation itself. This period itself must be a defined, exact and definite number. This number must be precise, regular and essential, a sine qua non. The period of an hour, for example, is an exact quantity, itself able to be broken down into exact numbers of smaller periods such as minutes and seconds. By this metaphor we seek an “hour” to measure of humanity’s “clock” itself. Every human community may be measured by this a divinely ordained “clock”. Each community, from families, clans, tribes, folk and peoples (Qawm, Aqwam), and nations (Milats and Ummahs.) is measured by generations composed of this precise time-span.

The themes and ideas in this series were developed over decades of rigorous and backbreaking intellectual labor. Leaving you hints but letting you search for an answer yourself is essential. This is not a superficial and speculative game; this series deals with matters critical to all of our futures, personal lives, hearts and souls. Without working for answers, when they are handed to you on plates and you do not personally explore the issues the end answers will be useless to your lives.

We know that there is a well established answer, established in the Sunnah and Qur’an. Among the favor of past nudges and hints, we indicate that the answer is explicitly related in numerous hadiths, and the age at which certain specific Prophets, alaihim salaam, were given Risalat – at which point their missions commenced – are also important.

We presented a couple of hadiths that concern the “Stages”, that is tabaqats, of the Ummah. We indicated that these hadiths were seen as weak – da’if – or worse in the eyes of some scholars and indicated that we will examine them hadiths in closer depth. By Allah’s leave we soon shall, giving more variants and information.

In defining the ages of human generations a critical concept is accountability. This age defining a human generation must include personal accountability for actions and intentions, and when such accountability begins and ends. This must cause us to closely examine human life-spans and death ages. Death is accountability’s final seal. Different ideas may be guessed at, but they fall short. For example some may decided to choose the age of, for example, 20. Others may decide to average out human life-spans, thinking that while people die at different ages, these ages can be averaged out. These fail, age 20 for reasons considered; averaging ages fails because you can not arrive at an exact and constant measure through human history.

Take tens of thousands of years of humanity, century to century, community to community, and realize that death ages vary wildly even between classes in specific communities and ages. This will skew any possible average. Stratified elites of city dwelling pagans may average wildly differently from their oppressed slaves and commoners. Rustic barbarians constantly on the move may average out entirely differently due to the collective rigors of their lives. Modern physical anthropology proves the back-breaking low life-expectancies of much of prehistoric humanity.

This is the crux of the issue:

– Is there a certain age in human lives at which one’s character is all but sealed?

– Is there a typical human norm in which, by a certain age, the vast majority of people are set in their ways so much that further education, advice, and experiences typically do not change them much in morals and character?

This consideration is important, ultimately what concerns us are the essential cast of one’s character and morals, not acquired naqali knowledge. Essential knowledge molds one’s character, external facts and datum do not.

At a certain age people are typically incorrigible in their ways. Unless severely challenged by a Transformative event or force, only Allah can rectify them. At that age you arrive at a prefiguration of your end and sealing state, and may Allah grant us a good one. This age will give us a steady benchmark of human lives, irrespective of their peoples’ life expectancy, which massively varies from community and age.

We will, by Allah’s leave and will, bring you proof and evidence of the solution to this matter. The evidences for the argument, the daleels, will be definitive, that is to say Qati. After presenting these proofs we will then turn to try to unravel the puzzle of the Ummah’s Tabaqaat

And Tawfiq is from Allah.

[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]

Part 5 The Crux of the Problem – and it’s Solution

Addendum: Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers? How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Peace upon those who seek peace,
We are now at the end of this journey. Let’s consider a few things together.
When The Mahdi does arrive, if he has not already arrived, realize that you may be unable to even recognize him for what he is because what you are expecting as miraculous is not congruent with reality, al-Haqq, itself. What you may be looking at and not perceiving is just be some guy, someone who seems like a total nobody to the entire world, with a small group of friends or small band of followers doing something or other out in the Middle East. Perhaps some minor rag-tag group or small faction, or just a small group of disparate individuals who blip in and out of the news you watch every single day. And perhaps only in the alternative and fringe news, and not even the mainstream press. While you skim the headlines you may see mention of this tiny group, derided as a group of no account, while you and the rest of the entire planet utterly fail to realize what was occurring.

Consider the difficulties in identifying one man by what you consider to be clear indications.

The Illogic of Expectations, Negative and Positive identifying

Why do we expect the future to be essentially different than our present? Why do we surmise that it should be any less mundane than today, that it should be different from the day to day reality that we already see constantly unfolding around us? Is the end cataclysmic? Without a doubt, but could it be that our understanding of the cataclysmic is warped?

You can’t really easily identify people by the things they do not do, for this is a negative identification and positive identification is far easier. We all tend to be able identify people by things that they do and which are apparent to our observation.

Consider deeply the matter of positive identifying. Would you be able to identify one of us if all that you knew is that we don’t east fresh tomatoes? How would you pick any of us out of a million people simply given the sign that we don’t eat tomatoes? This is a negative identifying, you wouldn’t be able to identify people by negative means, by the things they do not do, or the things they do not like. I challenge you to find one man by only three signs, he is not Chinese, he does not have red hair, and he does not pray tahhajud on Thursdays.

Logically we cannot easily identify people by the things the don’t do or are not; it is easier to identify people by the things they do or are. But for Prophets and Messengers the main way to identify them is simply that they are different from the masses. Such men do not do the petty and stupid things that most of us tend to do. Prophets and Messengers do not lie, or cheat in their transactions, or fornicate. In a sense they are basically like hermits, they do not go out there flaunting themselves and making spectacles. Apart from moral uprightness and honesty by in large they do not stand out very much, they dress simply and when they do go out and preach it tends to be things that the majority of humanity find rather boring, such as believe in one God, seek righteousness, do not lie and steal, do not fornicate with your neighbors wives and daughters. When they go to people’s doors the people who hear them probably respond along the lines of; “Okay, thank you very much old man, we have to got to bed and put our kids to sleep” and roll their eyes.

If such men showed up in a town square with a Mariachi Band, however, would the people forget them? Not by a long shot. Prophets do not have mariachi bands following them in their wake. Imagine yourself on any street corner today, in Paris, or New York, or Cairo, or Tunis, or London; imagine yourself standing there all day in simple clothes of the age, dressed like any clean but humble working man, telling people to desist from unrighteousness. They will just see you as a boring crazy guy on a street corner, but they will all run to see the Mariachi band that just set up a few blocks down the road and the charismatic lead singer with an eye-patch and sequins in his sombrero. This is the reason why the prophesied future may already be here and you don’t recognize it. Because it doesn’t have special effects or a musical soundtrack, and all of your life, whether you admit it or realize it, or not, this has been what you have been expecting.

Consider Today

For all you know The Mahdi could have given you a Khutbah once in your life, or you may have seen him having an argument outside of a Coffeehouse with a group of irate brothers, you may have witnessed him in ordinary clothes, talking to people who rejected him. In fact it is entirely possible he may have been somewhere being given a lecture and lesson by a group of people who actually thought they knew better. The Mahdi may have even been preached to by them, berated with fingers wagged at him by someone who thought he was qualified to teach, and we have a lot of those in the Ummah. Perhaps he and his entire small group may have been passed by, somewhere, and no one had a clue as to who they really were.

The Mahdi could not only be this small group but the Prophesies concerning his actually ruling and holding Amirate could be fulfilled while you are totally clueless to the reality of the situation beneath the appearances. Because, like Bani Isra’el 2000 years ago, you were expecting unreality, when reality was staring you in your very face. Jesus son of Mary, ‘Isa Ibn Mariam, could have come and gone for all you know, while you missed him. The False Messiah, al-Dajjal himself, could have come out, ‘ruled’ the entire world, passed from town to town and entered every place except Medina, been killed, and all the while you were eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes in your slippers, watching CNN and not having a clue as to what you were witnessing. Do you realize the enormity of this problem? This is what we are up against, that an entire Ummah of nearly 2 billion individuals may be none the wiser of the essential reality of what they have collectively expected for centuries.

Do not misunderstand us, we are not saying that this is happening today, but we are saying it could have happened, and you would be none the wise. We are saying that if you disregard this possibility you could very stupidly putting your entire Islam and Iman in grave danger, all the while feeling quite secure.

What This All Means 

What does this all mean, in terms of actual consequences of our argument? What it means is that when you do read Prophesy, and when you do consider The Future, you must throw off any and all interpretations of the miraculous, and consider the whole matter with truly fresh eyes. When some interpretations offer you an easily detectable sign, ask yourself how easily detectable it really is. The very prophesies themselves all but say that the majority of people will not understand them and will not see what is going on. And further more that when the people finally do see things they will deny them. So where does this leave us? How are we going to recognize or tell the signs when they are staring us in the face? That truly is the dilemma; if such signs are actually not easily detectable or may not even generate a blip of attention in the mainstream news, then what chance do any of us have? If we try to be even hyper-aware so too others in the past were hyper-aware and yet still were deceived.

Some of you reading this are probably well steeped in Qur’an, Hadith, and Prophesies. You’ve probably studied it all in depth, and maybe even dedicated many years of your life to it. You may saying saying to yourself ‘this guy is an idiot!’ or worse ‘this guy is a mubtadi!’ Perhaps you are thinking, well we clearly know the signs by heart.

Well, do you?

You say that The Mahdi will appear in Makkah.. Reflect on this, have not dozens of men appeared in Makkah, over the centuries and a few still even had followers. Some were the children or grandchildren of Sahabah and there were Mahdist expectations of them (which in short negates the skepticism of some in the Ummah who blindly reject the concept in spite of multitudes of Sahih Hadiths explicitly on the Mahdi, the fact that in th first 3 generations people explicitly asked of him and expected him is sufficient proof for anyone with intellect or Iman) These men, when they appeared, were denied, most were even killed, and some were actually killed in the Kaaba itself, and indeed a few by the actual people of Makkah itself, let alone by distant authorities far away. Each man is a data blip on your screen. If this mere sign was so obvious thousands of people over a 1300 odd year period would not have been deluded.

Also reflect on the fact that many pretenders to thee Mahdi arouse outside of Makkah and were followed by just by rustic uneducated ‘Araab and Bedouins, but by learned scholars. These scholars knew such signs as well as you do, and may have had access to Ahadith that you do not given the extinction of many collections through the centuries. Yet they still were deluded.

Another clear sign you may offer up is that The Mahdi will be 40 years of age. Really? Are you not aware that some narrations and their interpretations offer a range of years, from 39, or 38, or 30, or 18, or even 52 and 51, or 62. So now; which Mahdi do you prefer?

Another clear sign that you may offer is that he will be white in face, bright. Some sources however say Asmar – أَسْمَرَ, what does this even mean, does it mean olive skin?

Another clear sign you may offer is that he is tall, beyond the simple subjective nature of height , know that others say short.

Is the Mahdi weighty, hefty and big? But some narrations say that he’s skinny.

So many clear signs that you have memorized, yet ask yourself, and then tell us; which of these Mahdis are you looking for?

The clear sign of name; you offer that the Mahdi is a Muhammad son of Abdullah. Or perhaps of Abdulrahamn, or a similar configuration of divine names. Realize some of the scholars have denied this and pointed out that this is actually an interpretation, a conclusion drawn from an interpretation of the hadith, in which the The Prophet, saaws, states that The Mahdi’s name ‘treads along equal footing’ with his name. The Arabic can be translated in other ways, but this is a legitimate and quite literal translation of the meaning of Arabic. Would you risk kufr to deny the possibility of a literal meaning of a Hadith? The impression that the name of the Mahdi is identical to the Prophet’s, saws, name lies in that his name treads equally with his name, some have interpreted this as meaning “equal” but of course this is not what it necessarily literally means. It is but one possibility.

What does all of this mean, would you remotely dream of saying that you can interpret this to a meaning that you would actually swear to it? No, not if you were wise.

You mention the clear sign of the sinking, well lets look at this matter. How many witnesses are there to the sinking? Is there one Bedouin ‘Araab shepherd? Some narrations that say two survivors of the army itself, one of whom goes to Sham (Syria) to report back to The Sufyani, while another one goes to Makkah and gives The Mahdi good tidings. However some narrations say it is but the one Bedouin shepherd who saw the Army camped, and then he latter returned and saw no signs of them except the top of a tree sticking out of the sand. From this he deduces that what he just witnessed was the army swallowed up, and then he goes to Makkah to tell The Mahdi. Contemplate this for a moment; the man didn’t see the sinking, this legally makes him a dubious witness, you have testimonies of one or two anonymous and by all accounts uneducated soldiers, who were paid to be in vile and detestable army of The Sufyani. Choose them, or choose some anonymous hick of a shepherd who comes to you with stories of an entire army being swallowed up in the sand. Now, pretend that you are in Makkah at that time, and you must make a choice of going to test your life on the testimony of an unknown redneck of an ‘Araab sheep herder, and that if you do many people will go and get killed for this sign?

Do you yet perceive the magnitude of the problem here? What sign is this even? Utterly unreliable witnesses reporting weird things, in response to which the man who will be the Mahdi has to make life or death choices.

In understanding Prophesies people are expecting truly weird and spectacular things without the imagination to put themselves in the picture, all the while actually not expecting what they should be expecting. The narrations of the the sinking is only but one of the many things that alerted us to this problem. Any event must be judged by the quality of the witnesses and reporters to determine the quality of the event. This event was witnessed by the very lowest grade of witness. In the sharia you couldn’t even execute a chicken on the basis of such witnesses, much less than make Khuruj and go to war against the Entire World, and do not be deceived in this – this is what all of this affair amounts to, a band of 313 men, plus one Amie, who are going to war against the entire planet, which includes most of the Ummah itself who have been blinded by the Dajjal’s lies.

And this gives us another clear sign to look at, the 313. Allah truly knows best about this number, where did it come from? Some of these narrations concerning it only rise to the level of the companions. We do not dismiss them, unlike deluded and whacked out Kharijites who risk denying the worlds of the Prophet, SAWS, but it is a problem when the narrations require much more research. Is this an exact number? The Mahdi’s army may end up eventually with thousands in it. What if this body is 200, or 500, then what are you going to do when you witness them? Deny them because there is not an exact numerical amount of 313? Maybe some are taking baths or in the privy when you come across them, or asleep. Maybe some are en route but considered among this number. Is the number supposed to be exact or is it just an estimate? Is there, perhaps, an important meaning to the number that is part of the transmitted narrations that you are not understanding? If you encounter 100 men en route searching for The Mahdi, or 400, then what do you do? Is the exact number itself critical to the point that you would deny a group or man because you don’t see exactly 313 mustered up, what if some later join up, or others joined earlier but are now gone. At what exact point are they 313? They start off at 7, then 12, then 300 or so, perhaps they end up as 317, or 5000, or 50,000. Any group whatsoever that will have any success will eventually pass the point of having at least 313 followers.

Let’s examine a clear sign; you may say that The Mahdi will conquer the whole middle east. Well will he be in one spot, at one time? If not then who are other spots, ordinary men like what you see all around you in the Middle East today. Now of these men who you see here and there, running things around you, would you trust any of them with your goat? Would you trust us with your goat? Well our own fathers wouldn’t, and we are not too certain that we would trust you with out goats either.

Would you like to consider the clear sign of a voice from the sky? Assembled before you all of the hadith, there are perhaps seventy thereabouts, read all 70 or so narrations transmissions and variants. Perhaps you will notice that the “voice” described may not be something that anyone actually even hears. Which implies that the nature of the voice may be different than what you expect. If in some narrations the voice is heard, somehow the manage to not understand it, and somehow many people are deceived in spite of this “voice”. Do you know what it may be? Could it be some sort of boom in space or the upper atmosphere, or some other sort of atmospheric event? Perhaps it will be a sound that is perfectly scientifically explainable and very normal and not the one most people are looking for, while a small number, of very few people, “get it” And maybe even then, they don’t

Do you really expect a Monty Python like voice from clouds in heaven to be broadcast on that day, with visible angels with bugles?

For every one of these signs, when looked at closely, we have seen there were many realistic and seemingly mundane ways of looking at them, that were not only mundane but perfectly linguistically valid in meaning. And each of these, in reality, are deep miracles if you but understood.

You need to look at all of these expected signs, and if you are able to take the time out to do so analyze them not in light of what you expect and are looking for, but in light of all of the possible quite ordinary meanings.

There has been a major manipulation of our expectations, hopes and dreams. This manipulation is consciously performed, by a knowing and conscious agent, and it manifests at the emotional level of our coveted expectations and desires. At the level of hope and desire it is quite easy to deceive oneself and others. If we are to have any hope of unraveling things we must accept this and attack it, before it destroys us.

Here we conclude, please consider these ideas as you read further.

—–
Series Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – 2:Contrasting Present and Past – 3:The Trap and Background Music – 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

The Miracle of the Seemingly un-Miraculous

Addendum: Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers? How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Consider the miracles around you daily. Are you having problems thinking of some?

We are coming to the pivot point of this whole issue. What all of this actually means is that what’s Prophesied, whether in Islamic sources, or the original sources of past Ummahs, were many statements. In understanding any statements that sound dramatic we should probably revisit them, over and over again, and assume that the miraculous and dramatic are probably hidden in the mundane. What this practically means is that when you are reading narrations of Fitan or Malahim, when you are reading Prophesies, you have to revise your sense of the miraculous.

We are not saying these prophesies are lies, no far from it they are Truth, but you the reader may be inadvertently lying upon them by projecting fantasies and expectations into them. In effect our sense of the miraculous is simply deadened. If the Prophet Muhammad, SAAWs, says that ‘Isa, as, is going to kill the Antichrist when he comes, most people are prone to expecting a miraculous Battle Royall, with lightning in the sky and dark swarming clouds. You are not watching 300 or Clash of the Titans, when these matters come to pass they could be just like any street fight on a corner that you or others have witnessed in life. Out the corner of your eyes you see a few people tussling on the ground, there are police sirens because someone called 9/11, some people may be armed with belts or knives, perhaps a gun pulled, someone has a large sharp stick. Some of the people are bearded others are not. You would have no idea what you were witnessing.

There is some attuning that needs to be done. We contend that peoples sensitivity to miracles have become pretty much dead or atrophied. When people expect a miracle they expect a David Copperfield magic trick. In the actual Prophesies, when they speak of something the Prophets do, realize that they may be speaking of something utterly miraculous, but sublime in a way that only a heightened sense of awareness and sensitive mind can detect. The rest of humanity could be staring at such miracles in the face, and simply not be attuned to what is actually miraculous in them. This is because their tastes and perceptions are coarsened and jaundiced. They expect magic, when what they are looking at is divine miracle. They expect Pharaoh’s’ magicians, and are blind to the Red Sea parting or plagues of blood and frogs. They explain away the miraculous because it does not look like a sorcerer’s trickery, and they do not know what to pick out.

Much more about this needs to be said, and if time permits we shall. Many people, even all people – including us through our lives – have been misinformed and deluded about miracles. In our own talks between ourselves, and in communicating with others, we have realized that a delusional sense about the Miraculous, The Future and Prophesies, is widespread. People have a sense that is quite delusional, that Prophesies are reality bending events. They are actually reality fulfilling events.

What we are saying in essence is that the miraculous is in the mundane. If Allah permits we will address this topic in greater detail and depth because it is critical to our analysis.

Miracles really do happen, all of the time, all around us. By this we mean true miracles. We constantly witness them, day in and day out, we do not say to ourselves “Ajeeb! How strange!” No, we typically ignore them. We do not just mean little small and personal miracles, we truly mean cosmic miracles of immense scale. We see them, every day, truly universal miracles. The problem is that we are simply used to them.

When we see a sunrise, every day, does it seem miraculous to you ? If not then perhaps it is because you see it everyday. However if you were born on a planet where due to it’s rotation you have never seen one, and you were somehow brought to this Earth, we have no doubt that you would see one as a miracle. You, who have seen thousands of sunrises, simply are accustomed to them,. You see a true miracle as mundane. This is an error in perspective.

If you have never had fresh water, if the experience of drinking fresh water was beyond your ken for your entire life, you would only see the miracle of drinking fresh non-brackish water, and a plenitude of it, once you finally have it for the first time. If however you are used to this miracle, every day, on tap, you utterly fail to see how special it is. Take any number of the thousands of the things we daily witness going on around us. Because we all are; and this means you reading this, as well as us writing this, a bunch of spoiled brats, we simply don’t see such things. Imagine the manner in which a rich and spoiled brat grows used to the showering of gifts and allowances. Such a brat develops a sense of entitlement and certain expectations. This is the bugbear of expectations we hope to slay. A spoiled child stops appreciating the gifts and miracles daily pouring down its poor benighted little head, so do we every morning of our lives; we have just become spoiled to our miracles.

If you go to a parched and famine stricken country and watch a poor person slowly starving, who has watched his or her family members die like flies, and you offer this person for the first time in ages simple water, then this life saving offering is a miracle to them.

If such a person after watching the parched land of their forefathers wither away and turn to dust, wanders seeking a bit to eat or drink while their population is continually decimated, when they suddenly come across a tiny spring, a rivulet of watter and mud streaming through otherwise dead land, and they dip their hands into the crack and extract life sustaining and saving water, this is an utterly delicious miracle to that person. Only because that person’s sense of reality has been reset.

In a sense our memories have become overloaded, and they need to be reset. If we do not figure out how to do so it is possible that events may force our reset, with great discomfort, misery, and death. If you could only reset your memory, and just stop assuming that because something happened yesterday it will happen again today, and tomorrow, then you will learn to start seeing what are truly miracles. Only then will you begin to see life for what it truly is; a continual burst of miracles.

Consider daily the miracles around you again.

—–
Series Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – 2:Contrasting Present and Past – 3:The Trap and Background Music – 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Part 3, The Trap Explained, with No Background Music…

Addendum: Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers? How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

We wish peace upon those who seek it.

To continue, realize that in the minds of many, The Future is spectacular, with background music. A musical score of triumphant and symphonic angelic choirs booms while the Mujahideen appear behind The Mahdi and Jesus AS. Ominous grinding music cymbals [our own original verb] when the Dajjal and his minions appear.

We must see this soundtrack movie vision of The Future as delusional, and we must rid ourselves of these visions, or more correctly: televisions [another original definition].

If we are given to imagine the hordes of Gog and Magog, e.g. Yajuj and Majuj, swarming across the land, as ugly fur-clad barbarians with flattened faces, like Trolls or Tolkien’s Orcs, with cacophonous post-modern noise music, then it is urgent that we rid ourselves of this mental nonsense.

The Trap Explained:

Is it such a stretch to state that when The Mahdi and ‘Isa Ibn Mariam emerge AS, most of the Muslim Ummah will not recognize them? If you think this is a stretch then explain how was it that the exact same thing happened to the Bani Isra’el? Obviously whatever was inside their heads, the reality of what they saw did not match these expectations. Once you fully wrap your mind around this conundrum, you will grasp the central point.

The existence of our misleading televisions of the FUTURE suggests a grave manipulation of our expectations. Such manipulation requires willing and active agents. Is it possible that the Ummahs of the past, like the Bani Isra’el, were actively misdirected in how they interpreted their Prophetic texts, or even that their texts were distorted in the most subtle literal way to produce the most profound and imperceptible semantic distortions?

Such subtle literal distortions would have allowed a select few to decipher the original meaning of the texts and to recognize Yahya and ‘Isa, alaihim Salaam, even while the vast majority was deceived.

The disturbing question we put on the table is whether or not the same has been done to us. Are we looking for a completely unreal future, and thus being deceived by the very texts of the prophesies that are supposed to aid us in recognizing That Future?

The reality is that you and I have been set up to fail by our own expectations. We all have been set up to miss the very Future we dream of and expect.

Whatever televisions and images that are now in your heads, no matter how dramatic or amazing, they may utterly blind you to recognizing the reality of the real when it finally arrives.

If the past is any reliable indicator of our present condition, then we are all in for a rather big fall. The real drama is that, essentially, we have been suckers for the largest con job of history. To be clear, consider the distinct probability that we could very well be in the Apocalypse right now. That what we see around us are the actual signs of the End and that, in other words, we may be in the process of “missing” the proverbial boat.

It is possible, in fact, that we actually already have missed this proverbial boat, being The Future in the Prophecies we are reading. It is possible that Jesus has already came, The Mahdi already preceded him, The Dajjal already came with the very reign of the Antichrist all but come and gone. That all of this occurred under our very noses with only a very small group of people recognizing it.

The thing is, you already know this: most people are deceived by the Dajjal and most people, in the end, are condemned by their very expectations.

Is this not what the Prophecies tell us? It is. So then?

While we do not argue that the Mahdi AS and Jesus AS or the Dajjal have already appeared, we do logically entertain the possibility. If this was the case then not only would you find yourself clueless, but you would also find yourself potentially among the lost. We hope that you understand the severity of this, if it still sounds impossible to you, then you clearly don’t “get it” yet.

 Please consider these points now.

—–
Series Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – 2:Contrasting Present and Past – 3:The Trap and Background Music – 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Part Two, Understanding How The Present and Past Contrast

Addendum: Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers? How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Thank you for joining us again. We left off with the realization that humanity typically entertains very unrealistic expectations of the FUTURE which affects their perceptions of Prophecy. Let’s quickly recap matters and proceed:

To Summarize the Past:

People often have views of The Past, The Future, and Religion itself that at the core are quite cartoonish. However this is often the only way that we can make sense of things. When we retreat into a delusional and unrealistic view of religion, it does not do us much objective good.

As examples, we examined the time of Jesus son of Mary AS, and how the Children of Israel misperceived his reality in spite of being well-steeped in Messianic Prophecies, as well as intense imminent expectations. Our main guiding rule in this whole series is to never underestimate the people of the past: one cartoonish view of The Past is that its people were primitive simpletons. This is not so, the Israelites were just as smart as people today, and many of them could well have been far more intelligent that you or I, or anyone reading this. How is it that they missed the very signs they were looking for when they came to pass?

When the Future arrived for Bani Israel, out of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and perhaps a million people in all Palestine, only a small handful of people recognized Jesus as the Messiah. It is likely that not even 1% of Bani Israel recognized the very Messiah they were waiting for. We saw that the only possible reason for their mis-perception lay in delusion; delusional expectations of how the FUTURE would look when it arrived, and more specifically, delusions regarding the expected nature, appearance, and behavior of the Messiah and other Prophesied figures such as John The Baptist AS.

Yahya, John the Baptist, daily called out: “here he is” – all the while when the actual Messiah walked down the street, the general people did not recognize him within their very midst. In fact so high was the expectation that many of the Israelites fell for false Messiahs, the history of the 200 years before and after Jesus AS is full of Messianic movements and figures. So clearly these expectations were rife.

Lest we overly focus on the time of Jesus, let’s look at the Israelites in Moses’ day. The Children of Israel witnessed countless miracles but still worshiped the calf? Ponder for a moment this, after literally witnessing miracles “of Biblical proportions” you have an entire Ummah melting their jewelry and molding a Golden calf, worshiping it while engaging in the most vulgar orgies, while Haroun, AS, Moses’ brother stood by helpless. Do you ever ask yourself: “How could they reason so badly?” If not, then perhaps you should be asking yourself this question. Think to yourself, if you saw a plague of frogs, the entire Nile river running red with blood, locusts, entire armies being swallowed by the sea after you passed through unscathed, with other signs and portents, would you be so stupid as to disobey the God of your Prophet and leader and worship a molded Golden calf?

we reiterate all of this in order to shed light on the reality of our current situation by direct contrast and comparison with ancient prophetic catastrophes. In theirs and our case, we have theatrical and yet delusional expectations. By this, we illustrate in dramatic terms how people can in effect and practice disbelieve the fulfillment of prophecies whose very words they thoroughly memorize and believe in and whose fulfillment they expected.

Today’s Situation Contrasted:

Let us examine situation today. If the Bani Israel in Jesus’ day were largely melodramatic in their expectations to the point of literally missing him when he arrived and left, how can we be certain that we are not similarly misled?

Do not be so unwise as to dismiss this caution just yet, because our situation is not so dissimilar to that of the Israelites, or that of other nations and Umam. Then, as now, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people were actively expecting and looking for Prophesied figures of Jesus and John the Baptist AS, yet they failed to recognize them.

Today, the Muslim Ummah expects the Mahdi and then the Messiah AS. Moreover we expect many other apocalyptic changes and figures that were prophesied to occur in The Future, such as The Qahtani, The Khorasani, the evil Sufyani – السفياني -, and the accursed Antichrist; al-Masih al-Dajjal – المسيح الدجّال . Such expectations are not only molded by how we read the Qur’an, Hadith, and other Prophetic literature, but also in how trusted scholars through the ages have interpreted and explained these to us. Naturally all of us have our own various personal ideas of how such things will come to pass.

Our expectations do not develop in our minds in pristine isolation. Our religious sources alone do not mold our Future expectations. When you honestly reflect on where we get our ideas about The Future, you will see a more nuanced picture indeed. We all are exposed to a multitude of external sources, all acting as dominant influences in our lives. Such sources mold our culture, language and beliefs, and coalesce to shape our expectations in many ways. They act as powerful, yet dimly recognized influences, and much of what we are prone to believe as original ideas are actually prompted, provoked, and nudged both by impersonal factors, such as the very logic of the language and cultural system we are exposed to, as well as highly personal influences, human and non-human action with volition and motives. We also often act as “echo chambers” to each other, repeating beliefs, axioms, and assumptions to each other, each of us semi-consciously reinforcing each other’s beliefs and disbeliefs.

In every culture lie hidden or unrecognized, yet authoritative, vectors of social and mental influence. They operate at the periphery of our conscious perception and often inform thoughts and feelings we believe to be wholly our own. Collectively they contribute to a shared pool of dominant assumptions that they we rarely question. A skeptical reader may want to deny this, it is an understandable self-preserving reaction which has intractably confounding consequences. There is great personal power in learning to understand the processes of such influences. This process lies in the purpose of our site, we find that we all live in a veritable Cipherverse, and we aim to decode it bit by bit. These processes are only a small part of the science of Memetics.

What we are influenced with, from authoritative or barely perceptible sources, people tend to take for granted. However profoundly they act upon us, we all tend to barely notice them on the sidelines. In today’s Muslim Ummah many social influences are not from Prophetic texts. But they may impact how we internally understand and interpret Prophetic texts.

There has always been, in every civilization, a sort of entertainment media, what we see in the modern world has direct parallels with the past, from storytellers (al-qussas) in the coffeehouse or Suq, or among the Greeks: the theater and drama, the poets and orators. Even our Paleolithic soul-mates had their social engineering in the form of cave paintings of figures drawn on the wall, mad even more impressive by the dance of flickering mammoth fat lamps. This is all directly analogous to our modern communications and entertainment media.

Look at this ecosystem of ideas as a vast echo-chamber, in which we are all groomed from childhood to engage in a type of magical thinking when it comes to our expectations from Prophecy and The Future. Therefore to better understand the Prophecies as they were intended to be understood by the Prophets of Allah, SAAS, we must kill the thought patterns resulting from such magical thinking as we find them in our heads. We must regard these images of The Future as mental idols; false realities concealing the simple reality that when The Future does arrives, there is no reason why it should not be as mundane and real as the world itself.

Think this over.

—–
Series Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?How our ideas of Prophecy and the Future are Manipulated.
[1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – 2:Contrasting Present and Past – 3:The Trap and Background Music – 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Series Navigation
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]
.o0o.
Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?
Manipulation of Prophecy The Future and YOU
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Peace be upon those who seek peace. Thank you for and welcome back. When we last left you, we first considered the important question of the length of a generation given the complexities of the intermixing of young and old within the same chronological stage and the fact established that the stages we consider cannot overlap and have to represent a definite value. After allowing you time to consider different scenarios, we have posted, in episode four of this series, two variants of a hadith that answers the very question we have been considering.

We should note first that we are dealing with communities such as clans, tribes, and nations. Our purpose was to arrive at a divinely mandated time-scale by which to count the ages of human communities. Each such community, a People in the proper sense, will always possess individual exceptions to a given rule. But we are ruling out exceptional thinking and are not concerned with the fact that many die in infancy, while others still survive to become octogenarians. Here, we examine broad generalities, from which the general rule is derived and to which it applies.

Whatever genealogical period we consider, it must include the time for one generation to be born, grow into maturity, and at the very least sire children if nor raise them. Your first answer may perhaps have been: 20 years. However, a 20-year time-frame does not allow the begetting of a full new generation. All you would have after 20 years would be a statistically small number of individuals of the new generation. Not enough for replacement of the previous generation. And that is not a full generation, let alone a community.

Therefore, from a purely numerical perspective, we would need at around 30 years to simply replace the numbers of the old generation.

Most analysis and arguments about this issue stop at the numerical stage. However, the Islamic reasoning adds a crucial dimension to this: A community is more than the sum if the genes of its members. To generate a new generation from an old one, the memes must also be transmitted. And this can only be done through upbringing and education which occur from the years of infancy to the age of post-pubescence. This argument clearly lengthens our generation into the late thirties all the way to 40.

Granted, our analysis here is a qualitative one. However, the outline and premises of a a fully quantitative proof should be well-understood by now.

Accountability is a concept of central concern. In Islam this concept is called Takleef, literally the word pertains to the duties one bears. There is a definite age upon which a person becomes accountable for their actions and liable for the duties of adulthood, such a person is a Mukallaf. Such a one is legally and morally fully responsible and accountable for all of their conscious and sane actions. This does not occur until puberty and adolescence, which typically begins from roughly 13 to 16 years of age. From this perspective ending a generation at age 20 is not enough time.

When does the accountability of a previous generation end? The obvious answer to this is at Death. You may raise the objection that Death tends to happen, on average, at different times for different communities. For example, in ancient times among some barbarian nations, life expectancy may only have been in the 30′s to mid 40’s, due both to rigors of life, as well as the lack of hygiene and medicine found among the civilized, best illustrated in the millennial golden age of Islam from the seventh century to the seventeenth. In more civilized early communities, life expectancies may have ranged from 50’s to even the 70’s. In a few modern communities, life expectancy could range even into the 80’s.

Weigh this, and examine the two previously posted hadiths. More will be presented soon, by Allah’s leave.

[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]

Series Navigation
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]
.o0o.
Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?
Manipulation of Prophecy The Future and YOU
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Peace be upon those who seek it,
Thank you for joining us again.
Before we continue, examine these two narrations. Many variants of this Hadith exist, and by Allah’s leave we will systematically explore them. Only once you have seen them all will you find yourself starting to understand the tremendous importance of this affair. Some variants of this Hadith have been judged harshly by some later Scholars, but to make sense of the misunderstandings through the ages the full context must be considered. Therefore more translations, chains of narration, and opinions of the scholars will be given as we explore other variants.

طبقات أمتي خمس طبقات كل طبقة منها أربعون سنة فطبقتي وطبقة أصحابي أهل العلم والإيمان والذين يلونهم إلى الثمانين أهل البر والتقوى والذين يلونهم إلى العشرين ومائة أهل التراحم والتواصل والذين يلونهم إلى الستين ومائة أهل التقاطع والتدابر والذين يلونهم إلى المائتين أهل الهرج والحروب

“The STAGES of my Ummah are five STAGES. Each STAGE is of Forty Years. My STAGE and the STAGE of my companions, it is of People of Knowledge and Faith; and those who follow them, to the Eightieth, are people of Righteousness and God Consciousness. And of those who follow them, to the One Hundred and Twentieths, are people of Mercy and Joining together. And those who follow them, to One Hundred and Sixty, are people of cutting off and divisions. And those who follow them, to Two Hundred, are people of Slaughter and Wars.”
The source of this narration is the book in the late 900’s of Ibn ‘Araq al-Kanani – ابن عراق الكناني – narrated by Anas ibn Malik, radillahu ‘anhu

Now consider this transmission, it is listed in the book of Imam Suyuti – جلال الدين السيوطي – covering Mawdu Hadiths. It was recorded in the early 900’s. Do not let this distract you yet. We expose each version because irrespective of individual texts’ faults, they add up like puzzle pieces. Remain with us, give us the benefit of the doubt, because this material could very well concern your life and, more importantly, your eternity:

أمتي على خمس طبقات وأنا ومن معي إلى أربعين سنة أهل نبوة وهدى والطبقة الثانية إلى ثمانين سنة أهل بر وتقوى والطبقة الثالثة إلى عشرين ومائة أهل تواصل وتراحم والطبقة الرابعة إلى الستين ومائة أهل تقاطع وتدابر والطبقة الخامسة إلى مائتي سنة أهل هرج فالهرب

“My Ummah is upon five STAGES: I and those with me to Forty Years are people of Prophecy and Guidance. And the Second STAGE to Eighty years are people of Righteousness and God Consciousness, and the Third STAGE to One Hundred and Twenty are people of joining and mercy, and the Fourth STAGE to One Hundred and Sixty are people of cutting off and dissimilarity in divisions, and the Fifth STAGE unto Two Hundred years are people of slaughter and wars”

Consider these narrations’ wording. Their Takhriij and other Scholarly opinions will soon be seen, with more variants all shedding greater light on these matters.

For now, read them, weigh them, and do not dismiss them, then return to us soon. It is confusing, we know, but Inshallah matters will be made more clear, and Allah and his Messenger know best.

[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]

Series Navigation
[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]
.o0o.
Addendum – Can Jesus, the Mahdi and the dajjal surpass or even match The Avengers?
Manipulation of Prophecy The Future and YOU
[Part 1: Past Ummahs and Our Delusions – Part 2:Contrasting Present and Past – Part 3:The Trap and Background Music – Part 4:Miracles in the Seemingly un-Miraculous – Part 5:Conclusion, Crux and Solution]

Peace unto those who seek peace.

Having joined us, perhaps your curiosity is piqued, and perhaps you have a few questions. Please bear in mind that on a very real level this series is designed to be interactive, that is to say that we want you to get out of it what you are willing to put into it. If our conclusions are spoon-fed to you then this would actually rob you of something quite valuable; the ability to arrive at our conclusions by doing your own work. By the time you are finished you will have considered ideas that few others have considered.

From the outset we would like to firmly establish for your mind what this series is, and is not, about. What our aims are, and what questions we seek to answer.

All of the questions either directly addressed, or in some cases alluded to, concern knowledge of the future. From whether or not it is possible to arrive at certain knowledge of the future, and if so then by what means? Is there a divine schedule for humanity, and is it knowable? Firstly though, how is time past, and time future, measured out for humanity, in the divine schedule. By what units is human time divinely measured out, and why would Allah reveal knowledge of such units?

When we ask what is the divine measurement of human timescales, this question presupposes a more basic one, are there human timescales for human history and affairs?

Allah, supreme and exalted, does not need to measure in finite human units of time, rather, it is humanity that perceives the linear procession of time. Since Allah measures out all things in His qadar, His divine allotment, the terms of humanity are no exception and there are scales of human times and history. Is there however a divinely mandated scale ? A scale mandated by Allah for the procession of human history and time?

You are a discrete entity, and a living being, and you have a lifespan. Humans in general have average lifespans. By and large, we grow mature and die within time frames marked by an orderly procession of events, from birth to nursing, crawling, walking, talking and with speech the progressive refinement of our senses and intelligence, mastering the toilet functions, further growth, puberty and adolescence, and so on to the decline in years, dotage, and eventual death.

Realize that natural time lengths exist for all phenomena. All living beings have lifespans. Individual human lives are measured in years. Galaxies, on the other hand, experience lifespans of billions of years. On earth, geological time is in millions of years, while some tiny microbes have entire lifespans measured on the scale of hours.

The question we are asking can be summed up as this: what is the natural period for humanity? If you take human communities, assemblages of peoples and nations, what is the period by which their growth, maturation and passing should be measured?

Let us examine this for a moment, if the hands of a clock cycle around its face every 12 hours, then this is a period. If a calendar recycles every 12 months, passing on to a new year, then this too is a period. What we seek, and what we want you to ask yourself, is this; is there a period, an objectively established unit to measure the periodical progression of human communities and humanity itself? And if so what is it?

Now that you have thought to yourself about what this period may be, let’s look into it. Did you, perhaps, ask yourself: “is it a year?” If so then why? Why should it be a year? Perhaps you asked yourself: “is it a month?” – well again why, it is not enough to just guess, think over deeply why select that scale. Let us say, perhaps, that you considered: “is it a decade? a century?.” Perhaps you felt a general ‘feeling’ that you couldn’t articulate, causing you to consider a series of years, but when asked why, you could not explain.

Consider that the period we are looking for is actually a genealogical time period. Let us think this over for a moment; consider the progress of human history. What is history if not the procession of human lives and deeds, in sequence, one after another. Human lives have distinct periods that are, essentially, stages. We often know these stages as the ages of a one’s life, and they range from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence, prime adulthood, middle age, and old age.

From this genealogical perspective, we perceive the passing of one generation of humans to another, and from those others to yet others who would then carry on the torch of progress or degradation. Is not the history of many nations measured, in part, by dynastic reigns? This is an explicitly genealogical notion and sheds light on what we are looking at: generations.

This brings us to the important question: what is the length of a generation? And to complicate matters generations overlap. Young and old frequently live together, within the same chronological period. For example, you may have children, parents, grand-parents, and great grand-parents all alive at the same time and place.

Consider a hint; the periods we are considering can’t overlap, they have to represent some definite value. Give yourself some time to consider different scenarios. We will conclude this numerical topic in our next episode.

[ Part One: Important Warning ] [ Part Two: Asking The First Questions ] [ Part Three: First Examined Hadiths ] [ Part Four: The Question of Generations, Another Hint ]