THE END TIME OR ESCHATON
By Babatunde Jose
Despite the ongoing quest for solutions to the problem that life is a terminal condition immortality remains a dream—or, as Jorge Luis Borges intimated in “The Immortal,” a nightmare.
Life is a cosmic accident—a view held by physicists such as Murray Gell-Mann. To date, around 99.9 percent of all species ever to have inhabited Earth have become extinct. Furthermore, in another 100 years from now 99.9% of all people living today would be dead, including those born as we write this.
Each year, around the world, over fifty-nine million people die—roughly the entire population of the world at the time King David ruled over the Israelites. In other words, roughly 160,000 people die each day. Around 60 percent of those who die are sixty-five or older.
In the first half of 2020, roughly 510,000 people worldwide died of COVID-19.
Even if we avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, “in about 3.5 billion years, the growing luminosity of the sun will essentially have sterilized the Earth’s biosphere and bring about the end of complex life on Earth.
The “end time,” or eschaton (from the Greek eskhatos), is a feature of most of the world’s major religions, including the most ancient, Zoroastrianism.
Although Hindu eschatology assumes vast cycles of time, the one currently under way, Kali Yuga, is expected to end violently, when Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, descends to “establish righteousness upon the earth.”
In Buddhism, too, there are apocalyptic scenes. Gautama Buddha prophesied that, after five thousand years, his teachings would be forgotten, leading to the moral degeneration of mankind.
Norse mythology, too, has its Ragnarök (twilight of the gods), in which a devastating great winter will plunge the world into darkness and despair. In the end, the ocean will completely submerge the world.
The Abrahamic religions, by contrast, have a linear cosmology: the end of days really is The End. Judaism foresees a Messianic Age with the return to Israel of the exiled Jewish Diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, and the resurrection of the dead.
Christianity offers a much richer version of the eschaton. Prior to the Second Coming of Christ (parousia), as Jesus himself told his followers, there would be a time of “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:15–22), “affliction” (Mark 13:19), or “days of vengeance” (Luke 21:10–33 offers the most detail of the Gospels).
The Revelation of Saint John offers perhaps the most striking of all visions of the end time—of a war in heaven between Michael and his angels and Satan, an interlude when Satan would be cast down and bound for a thousand years, after which Christ would reign for a millennium.
After that, Satan would be unleashed, then thrown into a lake of burning sulfur, and, finally, the dead would be judged by Christ and the unworthy cast down into the fiery lake. The description of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse is astonishing. See (Revelation 6:1–8)
The day of wrath is heralded by a great earthquake, an eclipse of the sun, and a blood moon. The stars fall to the earth, and the mountains and islands are “moved out of their places.”
A clever feature of the Christian eschaton was the uncertainty Christ left in his disciples’ minds about its timing: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36).
The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 at the hands of Titus was interpreted by the early Christians as fulfillment of Jesus’s prophecy that the Second Temple would be destroyed, but the subsequent spectacular events Christ had prophesied did not materialize.
By the time of Augustine of Hippo, it seemed prudent to downplay the millennium, as he did in The City of God (AD 426), consigning it to the realm of the unknowable.
Perhaps the decline of Christian millennialism helps explain the revolutionary impact of Islam when it arrived in the seventh century. In many respects, Islam simply dusted down the more exciting parts of Revelation.
Prophet Muhammad taught his followers that the Day of Judgment would be preceded by certain events which are categorized into minor and major events.
There are many other signs given by the Prophet which space will not allow us to relate here. But suffice to say that the Prophet mentioned ten major Signs of the Last Day:
- Dajjal — the false Messiah or Anti-Christ,
- Gog and Magog,
- Smoke,
- The beast of the earth or land (most likely the holy land),
- The sun would rise from the west,
- Three sinking of the earth
- One in the east
- One in the west
- and one in Arabia,
- A fire would come out of Yemen and would drive people to their place of assembly (for judgement),
- Jesus, the son of Mary would descend.
Other signs of the end time are:
- Homosexuality (and lesbianism) would become commonplace, and that is now happening before our very eyes. Social acceptance and legal protection for this abominable sexual perversion is gaining ground. Indeed, those who hold fast to the divine prohibition of such sexual perversion are now demonized as a people who suffer from a disease called ‘homophobia’;
- Children born outside of marriage would become commonplace, in fact marriage itself now seems destined to become obsolete.
- Fornication and adultery would become commonplace, that, also, appears to have already been fulfilled in a modern world in which virginity and marital fidelity are becoming old-fashioned.
- “Time would move swiftly—a year passing like a month—a month like a week—a week like a day” etc., and already the perception of swiftly moving time is a universal experience.
- Prevalence of random killing, murder, and violence that “a killer would not know why he is killing and the one who is killed would not know why he is being killed”, and “every age is followed by one which would be worse”—already around the world senseless random killing has arrived and is constantly escalating.
- “Nothing would remain of Islam but the name, and nothing would remain of the Qur’an but the traces (of its writing) (i.e., the Qur’an would not be studied, no one would follow its guidance, it would be recited mechanically etc.); the Masjid (mosques) would be grand structures but would be devoid of guidance; and the Ulama (religious scholars of Islam who represent such people) would be the worst people beneath the sky. From them would emerge Fitnah (trials) and they would be the centers of Fitnah (since they betray Islam)” — there are many distinguished scholars of Islam who declare that this prophesy, also, has today found fulfilment. The evidence of such is overwhelming.
However, the End Time prophesy that takes the cake is this: Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) prophesied that: “People would follow a way of life other than mine, and give guidance other than mine”…“I fear for my people only the leaders who lead men astray”…“Before the Last Hour there will be great liars, so beware of them”…“When the most wicked member of a tribe becomes its ruler, and the most worthless member of a community becomes its leader, and a man is respected through fear of the evil he may do, and leadership is given to people who are unworthy of it, expect the Last Hour”.
Sad to say, all these are coming to pass in our lifetime. Indeed, the End Time is near. But do not expect it tomorrow morning. The Bible said a thousand years is like a day in the sight of God.
Allah knows best.
Barka Juma’at and Happy weekend.
