CG7, Islam, and the End
جامعة الدول العربية
Jāmaʻat ad-Duwwal al-ʻArabiyya Arab League Flag
In the Nov-December 2010 issue of its Bible Advocate magazine, CG7-Denver‘s former president, Calvin Burrell wrote the following
Islam can be summarized by six articles of faith:
• Indivisible oneness of God.
• Angels as the servants of God.
• Holy books, including the Taureh (Pentateuch); the Zabur
(Psalms); the Injil (Gospels); the Hadith (traditions of Muhammad);
and, holiest of all, the Qur’an.
• Major prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and
Muhammad
— the last and greatest.
• Day of final judgment: Good Muslims will be automatically
saved; those who don’t believe in God (not meaning Jews
and Christians, according to the Qur’an) will descend to hell
forever.
• Predestination: Allah’s absolute sovereignty brings a sense of
fatalism to Muslim faith; everything happens because “God
wills it.”
I would like to go a bit more into how Muslims view end times.
Some of Islamic end time views are in my 2012 and the Rise of the Secret Sect book. Here are a few quotes from it:
Now, it needs to be made clear that the Bible predicts the rise in the end time of a Future King of the South…—and this person may be the one that Muslims will consider to be their prophesied “Mahdi.”…
Notice the following from the New Encyclopedia of Islam:
The last days, as described in Islam, are marked by the figures of Gog and Magog (Juj wa Jajuj), the Mahdi, the Antichrist (Dajjal), and Jesus…Gog and Magog, representing the forces of chaos, have been kept at bay…At the end of time, chaos will break through the wall of Divinely imposed order, and the world will succumb to “outer darkness”. At the same time, it is believed, there will be a countercurrent, or a brief return to the state of spiritual lucidity and primordial integrity that obtained at the dawn of time. This is the reign of the Mahdi, the “rightly guided one”…
The reign of the Mahdi will be followed by that of the Antichrist… once the Antichrist has led away his followers, Jesus will then come to destroy the Antichrist in the closing moments of the cosmic drama.
Belief in the Mahdi has been rejected by noted Sunni authorities…
Some in Islam seem to believe that the reign of the Beast and Antichrist will happen after the Mahdi’s death. Now this is true, to a degree, for the Arab lands. However, the Beast (King of the North) and the final Antichrist (False Prophet) will rule in Europe and in some of the American land, prior to the European reign over Arab lands (hence the final Antichrist will have power prior to the death of the biblical King of the South, who seems to be the Islamic Mahdi).
The belief in a Mahdi is apparently a minority Sunni view, even though “the Muslim World League issued a fatwa in October of 1976 commanding Sunni Muslims to believe in the concept of an Islamic Savior called the Mahdi.” …
Shi’ites also would do well to recognize that just because someone may claim to be the final Imam (or Mahdi), does not mean that God will agree that he should be followed. Neither Sunnis nor Shi’ites should support one who will appear to possibly be the final Imam in the next decade; whoever claims to be will be defeated soundly (Daniel 11:40-43; see also Appendix B).
A coming leader is looked forward to in Islam, and needs to come before the end. This leader seems to be the same one that the Bible refers to as the final King of the South.
A reader sent me the following on other Islamic positions:
Excerpt from Islam regarding “The Last Day“…Resurrection and the Day of Judgment
A central doctrine of the Qur’an is the Last Day, on which the world will be destroyed and Allah will raise all people and jinn from the dead to be judged.
The Last Day is also called the Day of Standing Up, Day of Separation, Day of Reckoning, Day of Awakening, Day of Judgment, The Encompassing Day or The Hour.
Until the Day of Judgment, deceased souls remain in their graves awaiting the resurrection. However, they begin to feel immediately a taste of their destiny to come. Those bound for hell will suffer in their graves, while those bound for heaven will be in peace until that time.
The resurrection that will take place on the Last Day is physical, and is explained by suggesting that God will re-create the decayed body (17:100: “Could they not see that God who created the heavens and the earth is able to create the like of them”?).
The above is interesting, because, despite some differences, like the earliest professors of Christ, Islam believes that there will be a physical resurrection related to the Last Day, the time of the Great White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:5,11-13).
This may be because there was more acceptance of the Bible in the earliest formation of Islam than many Muslims now seem to hold.
Some items of possibly related interest may include:
What Did Early Christians Understand About the Resurrection? Is there more than one future resurrection? Did early Christians teach a physical resurrection? Did early Christians teach three resurrections?
Did The Early Church Teach Millenarianism? Was the millennium (sometimes called chiliasm) taught by early Christians? Who condemned it. Will Jesus literally reign for 1000 years on the earth? Is this time near?
Arabic Nazarenes May Have Kept Original Christian Practices Were their faithful Arabs who held to original Christianity?
Is There A Future King of the South? Some no longer believe there needs to be. Might Egypt, Islam, Iran, Arabs, or Ethiopia be involved? Might this King be called the Mahdi? What does the Bible say?
The Arab and Islamic World In the Bible, History, and Prophecy The Bible discusses the origins of the Arab world and discusses the Middle East in prophecy. What is ahead for the Middle East and those who follow Islam? What about the Imam Mahdi? What lies ahead for Turkey, Iran, and the other non-Arabic Muslims?
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