Responding to Islamic sectarianism

There are many today who beat their sectarian drums with
fury while portraying themselves as the only rightly-guided
believers. They also relish in exposing their sectarian rivals,
particularly the people of Tasawwuf, as misguided, while splitting
hair over trivia and pouncing upon issues of peripheral importance.
This book directs attention to that sectarian rivalry with dogmatic
claims to truth, and challenges those sects to produce scholarly
works on ‘Signs of the Last Day in the Modern Age’ in which are
located Dajjā l as well as Gog and Magog.
There would be some readers who would probably have no
knowledge whatsoever of Islamic sectarianism, hence the need to
provide information about at least some of those sects. And then
there would be other readers who, despite the above paragraph,
would still be curious about the identity of Islamic sects. Since the
blessed Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) himself prophesied the
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emergence of Islamic sectarianism and warned Muslims to stay
away from such sects, Muslims need a criterion by which they can
identify such sects. The subject of ‘Signs of the Last Hour’ and the
method of response to those Signs provides such a criterion. Dajjā l
as well as Gog and Magog are most certainly located within the
‘Signs of the Last Hour’, hence the relevance of this subject as a
response to Islamic sectarianism.
The Shia sect
Islamic sectarianism emerged within a few decades of the
Prophet’s death when the Shia sect was born. The most cherished
of all their beliefs concerning prophecy is that a descendent of the
Prophet (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) known as Imā m al-Mahdi would
eventually emerge and lead Muslims to victory over those waging
war on Islam. The Prophet himself clearly prophesied that such
would occur and both Sunnis and Shias have held firmly to this
prophecy. Shias also believe that the advent of Imā m al-Mahdi
would validate their sectarian claim to truth within Islam.
However Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) clearly
located the advent of Imā m al-Mahdi to occur at a time that would
be contemporaneous with the return of the true Messiah, Jesus the
son of Mary:
“How would you be (i.e. how wonderful a time that would be for you)
when the son of Mary descends amongst you and your Imā m (i.e. Imā m
al-Mahdi) would be from your own (ranks).”
(Sahīh Bukhā ri)
This prophecy concerning a time when the Imā m (i.e. ruler) of
the Muslims would be from within their own ranks indicates that
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for some time prior to that event they would be ruled by non-
Muslims. In other words the world of Islam would lose its freedom
to rule itself. Perhaps the entire post-Caliphate Sunni world is
today ruled (by proxy) by the European Jewish-Christian rulers of
the world. They force so-called Muslim (Sunni) governments into
such a state of submission that those countries become client-states
of the West. It is almost impossible for any Sunni Muslim
community today to escape from their vicious grip and recover
such independent self-rule that would free them from Judeo-
Christian political and economic influence and control.
Shia Iran, on the other hand, has claimed that the successful
Iranian Islamic revolution has taken that country out of the sphere
of influence and control of the non-Muslim rulers of the world. So
long as Shia Iran continues to successfully defy the West (Imā m al-
Khomeini demonised USA, appropriately so, as the “Great Satan”)
while maintaining a credible claim to independent self-rule, Shias
would have to concede that a valid Imā m or ruler from within their
community rules over them. The implications for the Shia claim to
truth in the context of the above Hadīth concerning the advent of
Imā m al-Mahdi and the return of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salā m) should be
obvious.
The above Hadīth also makes it clear that the advent of Imā m
al-Mahdi cannot take place until the time draws close for the return
of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salā m). But Jesus cannot return until Dajjā l the
false Messiah has completed his mission of impersonation of the
true Messiah. And Dajjā l cannot complete that mission of
impersonation until the Holy Land is liberated for the Jews and the
Israelite Jews are brought back from exile to the Holy Land to
reclaim it as their own.
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The Qur’ā n itself has declared in Sū rah al-Anbiyah’, 21:94-5
that a return to the “town” from which they were expelled (we
recognize that town to be Jerusalem) would take place only when
two things have occurred:
when Gog and Magog are released, and
they have spread out in all directions.
Now that the Israelites have returned to reclaim the Holy Land
as their own, it should be clear that a Shia sectarian claim to
represent the true Islam cannot be validated in the absence of
demonstration of understanding and penetration of the subjects of
Gog and Magog as well as Dajjā l. The world continues to await
scholarly Shia works on those subjects as they impact upon the
modern world.
Ahmadiyyah
Pride of place in the galaxy of deviant sects in the
contemporary world of Islam belongs however, and mysteriously
so, to the most-favored of modern Western secular civilization and
of the State of Israel, i.e. the Ahmadiyyah Movement. A
remarkable feature of this manifestly and dangerously misguided
sect is that its founder, a man named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad,
correctly located Gog and Magog in the nations of modern
Western civilization. Indeed this false Prophet was amazingly
correct on several other very important issues. However, despite
the fact that he so exposed modern European nations, his
movement yet continued to find abiding favor with them. Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad deceptively corrupted the subject of ‘Signs of the
Last Hour’ by falsely identifying Dajjā l the false Messiah with
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Gog and Magog. (See ‘The Antichrist and Gog and Magog’,
Muhammad Ali. No date. www.aaiil.com)
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad also startled the world with the equally
false claim that the Hadīth prophecy concerning the return of the
true Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary (‘alaihi al-Salā m), was fulfilled in
him. Even while he accepted the truth of the blessed Prophet’s
prophecy pertaining to the return of the true Messiah, he argued
that Jesus died in Kashmir, was buried there, and will not himself
return. Rather, he claimed, Prophet Muhammad was actually
referring to him, i.e. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, when he made that
prophecy. Mirza made that false claim in shameless denial of the
fact that he was the son of a Punjabi woman while Prophet
Muhammad clearly identified the Messiah who would return to be
son of the Virgin Mary:
“ . . . It will be at this very time that Allah will send the Messiah, the
son of Mary. He will descend at the white minaret on the eastern side of
Damascus, wearing two garments lightly dyed with saffron and placing
his hands on the wings of two Angels. When he lowers his head, there
will fall beads of perspiration from his head, and when he raises it up,
beads like pearls will scatter from it. Every Kā fir (i.e. disbeliever) who
smells the odour of his body will die and his breath will reach as far as he
is able to see . . . .”
(Sahīh Muslim)
In another Hadīth, also prophesying that momentous return, the
blessed Prophet made mention of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salam) by name:
“Hudhaifa bin Usaid Ghifā ri reported that Allah’s Messenger came to us
all of a sudden as we were (busy in a discussion). He asked: “What are
you discussing about?” They (the Companions) said, “We are discussing
about the Last Hour”. Thereupon he said: “It will not come until you see
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ten signs” and (in this connection) he made mention of the ‘smoke’,
‘Dajjā l’, ‘the beast’, ‘the rising of the sun from the west’, ‘the descent of
Jesus the son of Mary’, ‘Gog and Magog’, and sinking of the earth in
three places, one in the east, one in the west and one in Arabia at the end
of which fire would burn forth from Yemen, and would drive people to
their place of assembly.”
(Sahīh Muslim)
An Ahmadiyyah claim to represent true Islam (and this
applies to both sections of the Ahmadiyyah movement) should
have provoked Ahmadi scholars to respond to ‘Jerusalem in the
Qur’ā n’ published in 2002.