SIGNS OF PROPHET ISA’S SECOND COMING
The Hour is coming-there is no doubt about it. But most of mankind have no faith. (Qur’an, 40:59); He (Jesus) is a Sign of the Hour…(Quran, 43:61)
By Babatunde Jose
A world of peace and security in which abundance will replace poverty and justice will prevail instead of cruelty, conflict, and tension – this is the longing of humanity. Due to all of the twentieth century’s misery and pain, not to mention the ongoing problems all over the world today, this longing has become even more intense. A great majority of people desperately hope for a helping hand and wait for a savior who will save them from this misery, a person who will eliminate the negativized elements of the current system; ensure justice, peace, and security; and guide people to the truth and all that is good.
Everyone is waiting for this redemption: the needy who wait for an extended hand; the well-off who are in pain because of spiritual distress; and those who long for justice, order, peace, and moral excellence. By God’s Will, this event may be very near. The developments that we see all around us today are the signs indicating the closeness of this salvation. The End Time is upon us.
The great event that will be a means of humanity’s salvation is the second coming of Prophet Isa (peace be upon him). Mentioned 78 times in the Quran, his return to Earth, a belief held by both Christians and Muslims, will end this world’s all-pervasive cruelty and injustice, and transform it into a place of peace, abundance, and justice.
According to the Quran, approximately 2,024 years ago God thwarted the unbelievers’ plots to murder Prophet Isa (pbuh) by raising him up to Himself. See Quran 4:157.
The Qur’an and the related hadiths tell us that he will come back to Earth again in the End Time.
We need to emphasize that the world is also getting sociologically prepared for such a great event. The chain of events through which humanity has passed during the last two centuries has, both covertly and overtly, raised the expectation of a savior in the minds of people all over the world. People have increasingly seen that materialistic ideologies and lifestyles cannot save humanity; rather, they lead humanity closer to disaster and emptiness. This situation has caused many people to turn to the morality of religion.
Meanwhile, some secular researchers, scholars, or historians who analyze these developments also think that the world is searching for a Messiah and that this pursuit will deliver substantial results. For instance, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, the British researchers who received worldwide attention with their book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Dell: 1983), wrote another book, The Messianic Legacy (Dell: 1989), in which they examined Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and this expectation. In their book, they make the following comment:
*“Different as our modern world may be from the world of two thousand years ago, it is astonishing how much our own epoch has in common with what Jesus and his contemporaries regarded as the Last Times. We may, today, be technologically more adept and endowed with considerably more knowledge. But regrettably, we do not appear to be any wiser, any more intelligent… We are once again living through an acute crisis of meaning, an uncertainty about our direction and our goals.”*
The various systems, programs, and ideologies which, less than a century ago, seemed to promise so much have all, to one degree or another, proved hollow. As in Jesus’s time, there is a pervasive awareness that something is disastrously wrong. Each new terrorist outrage, each new air crash, each new natural disaster produces a frisson of panic.
The profound and rapid changes in our civilisation, the dissatisfaction with our systems of government, the increased use of indiscriminate murder and terrorism as a means of political protest – all have fostered a sense of general collapse, a wholesale disintegration of values. Society feels itself ‘held to ransom’… And, disillusioned by materialism’s failure to answer the question we seek.
The authors add the following: *“As in Jesus’s time, we live, quite palpably, in the shadow of an impending apocalyptic event… We are all helpless hostages to a reality we no longer fully control… And beneath the general anxiety, the maddening sense of impotence, the disillusionment with inept or irresponsible politicians, there is a profound longing for a genuine spiritual leader… who will understand, will take charge and – without of course violating established democratic freedoms – assume the role of guide, conferring meaning once again on lives which have grown increasingly empty.”*
The return of Prophet Isa (pbuh) is also being prepared for in the sociological sense. And yet our age appears determined to embrace another form of Messianic myth in order to obtain a sense of meaning.
It is no coincidence that this sociological infrastructure has been established at a time when the signs of Prophet Isa’s (pbuh) second coming appear one after another. The hadith literature provides us with a detailed account of these signs. In addition, the signs of this event as revealed in the New Testament have parallels with those stated in the hadiths. The great majority of these signs have come true in our day, one after the other and within the same period. That so many signs have come true in such a manner indicate the closeness of the second coming.
Signs of the second coming from the Islamic resources include: The Splitting of the Moon; The Iran-Iraq War; A Great Battle between the Tigris and the Euphrates; The Occupation of Afghanistan; Stopping the flow of the Euphrates; Lunar and Solar Eclipses in Ramadan; The Rise of a Comet; Storming the Kabbah and the subsequent bloodshed; Sighting a Flare in the East; A Sign out of the Sun.
A Tribulation of Dust and Smoke; The Emergence of Widespread Slaughter; The Killing of the Rulers of Damascus and Egypt; The Killing of Abdullah, the former King of Jordan; The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks; An Embargo against Iraq and Damascus; The Restructuring of Iraq; Iraqis Flee to Damascus and the North; Fitna in Damascus; Chaos in Damascus, Iraq, and Arabia; The Division of Iraq into Three Parts; A War between Muslims and Jews; The Killing of Innocent Children; Pervasive Corruption; One Type of Fitna Will Spread Everywhere; Religious Prohibitions Gain Acceptance; Openly Denying God; Replacing God with Other “Deities”; The Global Pervasiveness of Chaos and Conflict; The Current Situation of the Islamic World; Muslims Are Subjected to Severe Troubles; Loss of Hope in the Mahdi; Poverty and Hunger; Drought; A Weakening Economy in Specific Years; The Cutting of Trade and Roads; Decreased Earnings;
The Division of National Wealth among the Rich; An Increase in the Number of Earthquakes; Earth’s Collapse; Conversion of Homes into Graves; Winds and Tornadoes; Violent Rain; An Increased Amount of Lightning; Abandoning the True Religion and the Quran’s Moral Values; Not Pondering over the Quran in a Sincere Manner; Muslims’ Yearning for non-Muslims; Fitna Alienates People from the Quran; Propagandists Distancing People from Islam’s Morality; Hypocritical and Fraudulent Clergy; Degeneration among Politicians; Abandoning “Enjoining the Right and Forbidding the Wrong” as an Act of Worship; Good Is Confused with Evil; Close People Will Encourage One Another to Evil;
The Number of True Believers Being Very Few; Use of Mosques for Different Purposes; Appearance of People Who Recite the Qur’an for Personal Benefit; Faith in Horoscopes and Refutation of Fate; Making Hajj for Purposes Other than God’s Good Pleasure; People Inclining to the Desires of their Lower Selves; Social Deterioration; Adherence to Traitors, and Considering the Righteous as Treacherous;
The Decreasing Number of Reliable People; The Decreasing Number of Trustworthy People; Abandoning Almsgiving; Abandoning Salah (Prayers); The Spread of False Testimony and Slander; Giving Positions of Responsibility to Incompetent People; Considering One’s Superiority To Be in Wealth Rather; than in Awareness of God; The Decay of Human Relations; The Decay of Family Relations; Diminished Love and Respect among People; Weakening of the Family Structure; Increase in Worldly Ambition;
Prevalence of Hypocrisy and Ostentation; Spread of Cursing and Abuse; Spread of Forgery and Bribery; Increase of Gossip and Derision; Some Young People Turn Away from Religion’s Morality; The Collapse of Moral Values; Spread of Adultery; Acceptance of Homosexuality; Epidemics; Reports of Sudden Death Will Multiply; An Increase in Murders; Increase in Suicides; Civil Wars and Conflicts; Time Grows Short; The Appearance of False Messiahs.
We also read in the Bible portents of expectations of the end time and the second coming. There are three main events that make up the End Time: the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ.
Scripture commands us: *”But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).*
Matthew 24:6 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Matthew 24:42-44
_The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 1 Timothy 4:1_
*God has promised those of you who believe and do right actions that He will make them successors in the land, as He made those before them successors; will firmly establish for them their religion, with which He is pleased; and give them, in place of their fear, security. “They worship Me, not associating anything with Me.” Any who disbelieve after that, such people are deviators. (Surat an-Nur, 24:55)*
As we celebrate Easter and look forward to the end of Ramadan, let us renew our resolve to be better believers and be our brother’s keeper. Only then would we have benefitted from the Lent and Ramadan Fast.
May Allah accept our Fast, Prayers and Supplications.
Happy Easter and Ramadan Kareem.
Babatunde Jose
