The Antichrist in Islam (ad-Dajjal)

Just found an interesting article by a Malay Muslim on Dajjal, the Muslim Anti-Christin the last days. The significance is that this Muslim Anti-Christ correspondent to the Two Witness of Revelations.

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Characteristic	Ad-Dajjal	Two Witnesses	References
Physical characteristics	blind in one eye	No explicit description
Special characteristics	Has the letters “kfr” (kafir, meaning infidel) on forehead	Wears sackcloth signifying repentance (Heb: “kpr“. In Hebrew, the letter “p” is the same as “f”)	Rev. 11:3
Location	Appears between Iraq and Syria	Not stated, but likely in Israel and other places
Followers	Leader of 70,000 Isfahan Jews and women.	Not stated, likely a Jew and a Christian witness. No mention of followers
Vocation	Will claim to be a prophet	Prophecy, hence designated as prophets.	Rev 11:3
Ministry	Oppose al-Mahdi, Muslims and lead people away from Islam	Oppose Antichrist, the world and lead people away from the world religion. Lead people into repentance to the God of the Bible.	Rev 11:3,7
Ministry	Preach and torment Muslims for “40 days”. Due to unusual length of certain days, it is actually (or perceivably) about 14 months long.	Preach and torment Antichrist’s followers for 1260 days (about 42 months, 3.5 years)	Rev 11:5,6
Miracles	Performs great miracles, esp. sends and withholds rain.	Perform great miracles, esp. withhold rain.	Rev 11:5,6
Death	Killed by Isa	Killed by Antichrist	Rev 11:7
Death	Killed in Ludd (near Tel Aviv, Israel)	Bodies lie in Jerusalem (inside Israel)	Rev 11:8
Reactions to Death	No doubt there will be rejoicing by Muslims. Giving of sweets/gifts is a M.E. custom	Rejoicing by the world. Giving of gifts.	Rev 10
Burial	Not buried. Simply disappear.	Bodies lay unburied for 3.5 days, then resurrected to heaven.	Rev. 11:11-12

Notice that the correspondence is not as good a fit as the correspondence between al-Mahdi and Antichrist, and between Isa and False Prophet. In particular, there is one ad-Dajjal in Islam (although the hadiths say there will be thirty lesser dajjals), but there are Two Witnesses. However, the Islamic hadiths might actually be dealing only with the Jewish Witness (and did not mention the Christian Witness).

However, the general pattern is still very similar. In some characteristics, there is some leeway for both, so it isn’t necessarily a mismatch. For example, ad-Dajjal is supposed to be killed in Ludd near Tel Aviv in Israel (Northern Israel), while the bodies of the Two Witnesses will lie in Jerusalem. So, there is some room for these two to actualy be both fulfilled (eg. ad-Dajjal gets killed and then bodies moved to Jerusalem for all to see). The main anti-parallels are their miracles, their ministry, their death and the world’s reaction to their death.

This can be attributed to the fact that at most one religion is true (it can’t be both true). Hence, only one set of prophecies will be fulfilled, while the other will be very close, but not perfect. We shall have to wait and see as the future unfolds before our eyes.

Conclusions
We have examined in detail the hadiths and Muslim teachings about the Islamic apocalyptic character known as ad-Dajjal. Muslims understand this character to be the Antichrist. When compared against the Bible, however, ad-Dajjal is different from the Antichrist described in the Bible. Instead, we find that ad-Dajjal corresponds in description to the Two Witnesses.
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