Jesus Lived in India

[Guest guest]

Bal Ram Singh <bsingh (AT) umassd (DOT) edu>bsingh (AT) UMassD (DOT) EduSubject: Jesus Lived

in IndiaFri, 09 Sep 2005 08:53:59 -0400Dear Friends and Colleagues,One

more reason to know more about India, and its integrative role in the world.Bal

Ramhttp://www.lokvani.com/lokvani/article.php?article_id=2682Book Review - Jesus

Lived In IndiaRajiv Ramaratnam Jesus Lived in IndiaPublisher: Penguin BooksBy

Holger KerstenReviewed by Rajiv RamaratnamIf you thought that the Da Vinci Code

produced startling revelations, you will be blown away by Holger Kersten’s

‘Jesus Lived in India’. Unfortunately for Kersten, his work lacks a glossy book

cover like the ‘Code’. Further, unlike the ‘Code’, this book is presented as a

work of non-fiction. Had Kersten’s theories been packaged in a plot involving

some sort of treasure hunt, or mystery it would probably have sold as many

copies as the ‘Code’. Alas, Kersten is a pure academic, who just presented us

with his theories, conjectures and speculations on Biblical legends,

occurrences from Historical facts and fascinating coincidences. This book may

shoo away the mundane reader or the immensely religious, but to the curious and

objective, it is nothing short of spellbinding. I could not help but compare the

allegations in this book to the theories presented in the ‘Code’. Like the

‘Code’, this book makes allegations on the suppression of the truth. However,

in ‘Jesus Lived in India’, Kersten alleges that it was not just the Church but

also the narrators of the two Testaments who withheld the truth. In the opening

chapters of the book, Kersten narrates the experiences of several European

travelers and the discoveries they made in Kashmir and the Himalayas. He then

postulates his first theory.According to the Old Testament Moses led the Jews

from Egypt to the Promised Land, which they made their home. Conventional

‘knowledge’ has it, that this land is the site of modern day Israel. However,

this Promised Land, according to Kersten is not Israel, but the valley of

Kashmir. He bases his theory on several pieces of evidence. The first piece of

evidence is that several locales mentioned in the Old Testament bear strong

resemblances in name and description to places in and near the Kashmir valley.

Secondly the native Kashmiri people bear strong resemblances to Jews in

physical features. Thirdly the customs of Kashmiris have striking similarities

to those of the Jews.Then come the startling parts of Kersten’s revelations:

Jesus Christ spent much of his younger years in a Monastery in India, studying

Buddism. He then went back to the Middle East where he preached all his

knowledge and wisdom. Last but not the least, Jesus survived the Crucifixion,

not just in Spirit but also in body and then returned to India and continued to

spread his message. He finally died in Kashmir at a ripe old age. While Kersten

acknowledges that many Christians may accuse him of robbing Christianity of its

central message that Christ died on the cross to redeem us of our sins, Kersten

argues that this was not the true message that came from Christ but one that

came from Paul who gave us his own ‘interpretations ‘ of Christ’s life and

teachings. Jesus on the other hand, preached love, tolerance and spiritual

harmony. His life in itself epitomizes his central message.How does Kersten

come up with his theories? For one, there is no record of Christ’s life between

his early teens and his twenties. During this time, it was more than possible

that he could have gone to India to study Buddhism. According to Kersten, there

was a school of Buddhism in Alexandra in Greece, ever since Alexander invaded

North India. This is where Christ may have become familiar with Buddhist

thought and philosophy.Next, Kersten examines the myths and facts surrounding

the Shroud of Turin, the cloth that many believe to be the one used to drape

Christ when he was released of the Cross. As one may recall, a recent

scientific study of the Shroud revealed that it was a hoax. However, Kersten

argues that this Shroud is genuine and questions the validity of this

scientific endeavor. Particularly fascinating is his narrative on the History

of the Shroud and the possibility that it may have survived for tens of

centuries. Then Kersten presents some medical facts in arguing his case that

Jesus could not have died on the Cross, as proposed by the New Testament. He

goes on to postulate his theory that Christ survived the cross and escaped to

India, making a mark on all the land he traveled. Kersten quotes several tales,

legends and even the Koran in trying to prove that Jesus traveled to India,

created a following and finally died in Kashmir an old age. His tomb is still

in Kashmir, according to Kersten. All it would take to prove Kersten’s theories

is a comparison of DNA between the shroud and the body in the specified tomb.

Somehow I cannot believe that would happen any time soon. Blasphemy or not,

this book is a page-turner and extremely well written. For the inquisitive and

interested, I would recommend this book.

Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D.Director, Center for Indic StudiesUniversity of

Massachusetts Dartmouth285 Old Westport RoadDartmouth, MA 02747Phone:

508-999-8588Fax: 508-999-8451Email: bsingh (AT) umassd (DOT) eduInternet address:

http://www.umassd.edu/indic

[Guest guest]

vediculture, "Vrn Davan" <vaidika1008@h...>

wrote:

>

 

HARE KRISHNA ! JAYA RADHE ! SRI SRI GURU AND GAURANGA KI JAYA!

 

DEAR DEVOTEES OF THE LORD,

 

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE ENTIRE JESUS-IN-INDIA MOVEMENT, AS

PRESENTED BY KERSTEN AND SIMILAR WRITERS, IS TO BE FOUND PRIMARILY IN

MUSLIM MESSIANISM. BECAUSE VAISHNAVAS ARE GENERALLY UNFAMILIAR WITH

THIS TREND OF THOUGHT REGARDING JESUS IN THE VARIOUS MUSLIM SECTS,

THEY ARE PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TO ITS MANIFESTATION IN KASHMIR AND

HISTORICALLY GREATER INDIA, WHERE IT IS ALL MIXED-UP WITH CENTURIES

OF ISLAMIC ATTEMPTS TO ATTRACT OR DECIEVE VAISHNAVAS AND SHAIVITES

INTO CONVERSION TO ONE OF THE MANY MARGINALLY HINDU-INFLUENCED (SUFI

OR ESPECIALLY ISHMAILI) FORMS OF MUSLIM MESSIANISM. AMONG MANY OF

THE MUSLIM-HINDU HYBRID GROUPS COMING OUT OF THIS TYPE OF MUSLIM

MESSIANIC TRADITION ARE THE SIKHS AND BAHAIS, BUT I HAVE STUDIED

DOZENS MORE, WHICH MAY BE FOUND ALL OVER THE MIDDLE EAST TO AS FAR AS

SRI LANKA AND INDONESIA.

 

THE PARTICULAR MUSLIM MESSIANIC SECT, THE AMAHDIYYAS, THAT IS

INTIMATELY INVOLVED WITH THE SO-CALLED 'TOMB OF JESUS' IN KASHMIR, IS

THE ONE FOUNDED BY A MAN WHO ALSO CLAIMED THAT HE WAS KALKI AVATARA!

IT IS HIS FOLLOWERS WHO ACTUALLY WANTED TO MAKE A NEW 'MECCA' FOR

THEIR SELF-PROCLAIMED MUSLIM MESSIAH IN THE EAST. THERE ARE TWO MAIN

SECTS OF THIS RELIGION NOW, THE LAHORIS AND QADIANIS, WHO HATE EACH

OTHER WITH A FRATRICIDAL PASSION. THE SO-CALLED (TOTALLY BOGUS) 'TOMB

OF JESUS' IN KASHMIR, IS THE HOPED-FOR RALLYING POINT FOR ONE OF

THESE GROUPS, TO NULLIFY ALL OTHER WORLD RELIGIONS, AND ESTABLISH THE

AMAHDIYYA MESSIAH AS THE REAL WORLD SAVIOR, INCLUDING KALKI AVATARA!

IF YOU ACCEPT OR PROMOTE THIS NONSENSE MUSLIM AND NEW AGE

MAYAVADI 'JESUS TOMB' YOU WILL BE DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY PROMOTING

THE MESSIANIC CLAIMS OF ITS MANIAC 'DISCOVERER' THE SO-CALLED

AMAHDIYYA KALKI AVATARA'.

 

FOR GOD'S / KRISHNA'S SAKE, PLEASE DO NOT BE MISLED BY THIS

NONSENSE. TRY TO REMEMBER WHAT SRILA PRABHUPADA TAUGHT ABOUT

MAYAVADISM. KERSTEN EVEN CALLS JESUS A 'THERAVADIN BUDDHIST'! THE

THERAVADINS ARE THE MOST VIRULENTLY ATHEISTIC BUDDHISTS IN THE WORLD!

 

VAISHNAVAS SHOULD NOT FOLLOW MUSLIM FANATICS, ATHEISTIC BUDDHISTS

AND NEW AGE MAYAYADIS !

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE LAHORIS AND QADIANIS AND THE

BOGUS 'TOMB OF JESUS', PLEASE READ MY POSTS ON THIS SUBJECT AT

SARAGRAHI.

 

ALL GLORIES TO THE JESUS OF CHRISTIAN APOSTOLIC GURU, SHASTRA AND

SADHU!

 

THE JESUS OF ISLAM IS IS A COMPLETE CONCOCTION.

 

BHAKTI ANANDA GOSWAMI

 

http://www.sociologyesoscience.com/background.html

For Muslims two authoritative poles of religious reference exist: the

Qur'an, and the Sunnah plus the Hadith (Arabic plural Ahadith). The

Sunnah is the customary practice of the Islamic community as derived

from the actions and words of the prophet Muhammad (d. 632 cE/10 AH).

Hadiths are narrative accounts of the these same actions and

pronouncements, rather like "hearsay" records of what Muhammad did

and said." Hadiths are not the word of God in the sense that the

Qur'an is, but they are of only slightly lesser importance. They were

almost certainly orally transmitted for some time before being

redacted in the first few centuries of Islamic history. A specialized

field of hadith criticism and analysis developed as a means of

sorting the wheat of legitimate traditions-that is, ones that

ostensibly truly went back to Muhammad-from the chaff of forgeries.

Two aspects of individual hadiths became the focus of scholarly

criticism within the early Islamic world: the matn (plural mutun or

mitan), or "text," and the isnad (plural sanad), or "chain of

transmission." A matn might well be rejected on the grounds that it

seemed to contradict the Qur'an. But the focus of hadith criticism

was channeled into investigating the isnads rather than the matns.

The number, credibility, and seamless­ness of the transmitters became

more important than what the tradition actually said. And so as long

as a hadith text did not actually contradict the Qur'an, it had a

shot at being accepted by at least some segment of the early Islamic

community, especially if what it said proved useful in some manner,

usually political. Hadiths were ranked into three categories based on

the trustworthiness of their chains of transmission going back to the

Prophet: sahih, "sound"; hasan, "good"; and da'if, or "weak." This

categorization was largely worked out by Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafï i

(d. 820 cE), who had been disturbed by the proliferation of

questionable, even down­right false, traditions in his time and

developed the gauge of isnad legiti­macy as a means of differentiating

spurious hadith from acceptable ones. If a consensus of scholars

agreed a particular hadith was acceptable, then it was deemed so for

the entire Islamic world. By the end of the ninth century cE two

major compilations of Islamic traditions existed. One had been

assembled by Ismà it al-Bukhari (d. 870 CE and the other by Muslim b.

al-Hajjaj (d. 875), and these two earliest collections are to this

day considered the most authoritiative ones.

 

The first major empire conquered by the Arab Muslims, in the seventh

century CE, was that of Sasanian Persia (centered on modern Iran).

The Persians at that time adhered to the teachings of Zartusht,

or "Zoroaster," a Persian prophet who lived probably in the first

millennium BCE and created a religion that was, for all practical

purposes, dualistic. Zoroastrians believed in two gods: a good one,

Ahura-Mazda, and a bad one, Ahriman. Their religion sported a number

of characteristics that arguably influenced Judaism and Christianity,

as well as Islam: a distinct heaven and hell, angels and demons, and

judgment. In particular, Zoroastrian eschatology posits a cyclical

cosmic history of 3,000-year dispensations and the appearance of a

messianic or saviour figure, a saoshyant, at the end of time. What is

particularly interesting about Zoroastrianism in this regard is that

the messianic figures, Usedar and Pisyotan, come in tandems. One

ushers in the other's millennial reign.

 

By virtue of its conquest of Sasanian Persia, the developing religion

of the Muslims came into contact with two major eschatological ideas

that very likely later manifested themselves within Islam: the hidden-

yet-returning deliverer, which would predominate in Shï ism's ideas

of the occulted Imams; and the division of labor between the

deliverer and his precursor or helper, an eschatological paradigm in

both Shï i and Sunni Islam that is reflected in the respective End

Time tasks apportioned to the Mahdi and Jesus.

 

Even so, Zoroastrian antecedents are not sufficient to explain

Mahdism. Judaism and Christianity also influenced Islam. Throughout

most of Jewish history any prophet, priest, or ruler could be

anointed as a sign of God's favor and thus wear the mantle of

mashiakh. Eventually, however, the term came to be applied

specifically to David, second ruler (after Saul) of the united

kingdom of Israel from about 1000 to 961 BCE, and his descendants,

including the predicted future Messiah. This Messiah would be an

individual historical figure who would restore not only the good

fortune but also the political autonomy of the Jewish people.

 

Over the centuries, as various factions have developed within

Judaism, different views of the future Messiah have also evolved, a

process similar to that undergone later by Muslims regarding the

Mahdi. Orthodox Jews still look to the future for the Messiah;

indeed, some within this fold of Judaism think the state of Israel

has advanced the time of the messianic advent. In this they

ironically share a viewpoint with conservative and fundamentalist

Christian denominations that think the reestablishment of the Jewish

homeland in 1948 presages the return of Jesus.

 

Others in the Orthodox Jewish community have always considered

Zionism and even modern Israel itself illegitimate in that the

Messiah was not involved in the movement to reestablish a Jewish

homeland. The American Conservative and Reform Jewish movements, in

contrast, downplay the actual historical manifestation of the

Messiah. They do this either by dispensing with him as a historical

figure altogether, substituting instead a mood of universal ethical

regeneration, or by calling for what is in effect a demessianization

of Judaism. In the final analysis, however, the fact remains that

historically, and certainly in pre-Islamic times, the Jewish idea of

a messiah has been important and a crucial influence on its two

monotheistic children, Christianity and Islam.

 

The early church transformed the idea of Jesus as also a political-

spiritual leader who would throw off the occupier's yoke for the

Jewish people to that of a crucified and resurrected spiritual savior

for all humanity, the Christ. Christians also believe that 40 days

postresurrection Jesus ascended to heaven, whence he will return

eventually. Christian interpretations of this Second Coming and its

ultimate ramifications fall into three broad categories, commonly

called amillennial, premillennial, and postmillennial. All three

views reference the 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth predicated in

Revelation Amillennialists hold that there will not be a literal,

historical millennial rule by the returned Jesus. Premillennialists

maintain that Christ will return before this utopian millennium

begins, and that after it is over will come the other eschatological

events.

 

Postmillennialists believe that human societies will grow

progressively better and better by following Christianity and that at

some point a utopian millennium will commence, at the end of which

Christ will return. Different Christian denominations tend to fall

into one or another of these categories: Lutherans are officially

amillennial, for example; whereas Baptists, especially Southern ones,

are predominantly premillennial, as seemingly are the writers of the

Left Behind bestsellers. And although almost all Christian

denominations agree that Jesus will return someday, as avowed in the

Apostle's, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds, they do differ on several

points: whether Christ's return will accompanied by a "Rapture," or

taking up of all Christians bodily to heaven;" and perhaps more

important, when this return will occur and what will be the world

political, social, and economic situation that will precede it. For

despite Jesus' own admonitions that not even he knew when that time

would come, Christians have throughout history, especially whenever a

new millennium dawns, exerted great efforts to predict his Second

Coming.

 

Mahdism shares some characteristics with Jewish and Christian

messianism, but there are also significant points of departure.

Unlike Jewish and Christian messianic figures, the Islamic one cannot

be found in the religion's holy scriptures: the Qur'an says nothing

of the Mahdi, whereas the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New

Testament" both mention their respective Messiahs (the latter, of

course, numerous times). The Mahdi, as we shall see, appears in

traditions attributed to the prophet Muhammad.

 

Mahdism is akin to Jewish messianism in that both the Mahdi and the

still-to-come Jewish Messiah are primarily political-military leaders

whose tasks will be accomplished within the framework of human

history. Jesus, in contrast, is in his returned state the second

person of the Godhead and operates largely outside the space-time

continuum. Mahdism also shares with Jewish messianism a belief that

one of the major emphases of the Mahdi or Messiah will be collective

socioeconomic justice, rather than salvation of individual souls as

in the Christian formulation. It is true that Islam is the only world

religion besides Christianity that officially and canonically

includes Jesus- as a great prophet,-and fully expects his return,

albeit as a Muslim. Nonetheless, the actual messianic figure in

Islam, the Mahdi, has more in common with Jewish ideas of the Messiah

than with Christian ones. And just as a significant number of

Christians comb the Bible and the front pages of the newspapers

attempting to ascertain if Jesus return is nigh, a growing number of

Muslims, including Sunnis, have begun a similar effort vis-à-vis the

Mahdi by trying to read the Qur'an and the relevant traditions in

light of early-twenty-first-century events.

 

Unlike Jewish and Christian messianic figures, the Islamic one cannot

be found in the religion's holy scriptures: the Qur'an says nothing

of the Mahdi, whereas the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New

Testament both mention their respective Messiahs.But elucidating the

Mahdi however demands also some discussion about the Dajjal the

End Time plus also, Jesus.

 

For centuries Muslim eschatological commentators have divided the

signs and figures of the approaching end into two categories: major

and minor. In general, the minor signs are types that prefigure or

point to the End Time; the major ones will be proof that the end of

history itself is drawing nigh. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the

minor signs are tantamount to "the end of the beginning," whereas the

major signs truly mark "the beginning of The End." The appearances of

the Mahdi, Jesus, and the Dajjal are three signs always deemed major;

but others often mentioned in this same category are the sun rising

in the West, Yajuj and Majuj, the Dabbah, and the consuming fire from

Yemen. Infrequently the Mahdi is posited as neither major nor minor,

but the crucial transformative link between the two categories.

 

The minor signs include, but are not limited to, earthquakes,

increased sexual immorality, strife within the Muslim community,

great disparities in wealth, and the conquest of "Constantinople"

(Istanbul since 1453) and Rome by Muslim armies. Some Mahdist

apologists further break down the most important minor signs into

dozens of more spécfic ones, a process that seems to involve a not

inconsiderable degree of speculation and sensationalism. Some of

these signs may have already transpired; others are yet to happen .

But all of them are merely a warmup, as it were, for the main event:

the appearance on the world historical stage of the likes of the

Mahdi, Jesus, the Dajjal, and the Sufyani.

 

Whether the Mahdi is typified as a major or minor sign, he usually

comes first in the eschatological chronology spelled out in the

expressive literature of the Mahdist writers. All such writers agree

in general with the traditional description of the Mahdi and his role

in history: that he will resemble Muhammad in name and appearance;

that he will be of the Prophet's family; that he and Jesus will

eventually, somehow, cooperate against the forces of evil; that his

primary task during his limited tenure on earth will be to fill the

world with justice and equity, eliminating injus­tice and disparities

of wealth and power. The modern Mahdist apologists do depart' from

these common bases to imbue their virtual Mahdi with their own

preferred characteristics, however.

 

In terms of lineage and background, the Mahdi's family origins are

said to be traceable simply to Fatimah or to Fatimah through Hasan.

One might see such statements as evidence of the convergence of Sunni

and Shï i Mahdist views, except that other Mahdist loyalists take

pains to point out that although descended from Fatimah, the Mahdi

will be a rightly guided caliph and imam who is not Shï iIt is also

sometimes asserted that that Mahdi must be specifically an Arab

leader who eventually takes the reins of the entire Muslim world and

then the entire planet. He must be al-manzalah al-samiyah, "of

Semitic status," and so any non-Arab Muslim leader is ipso facto

wrong when trying to claim such a status-as did, allegedly, the

Ottoman Turkish sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861-1876) on advise from `Al

Afghani' following the Sudanese Mahdi's death.

 

The Mahdi's role is also fine-tuned by his modern devotees, fleshed

out beyond the rather vague one as restorer of global justice and

equity. On the psychological level, once he comes forth the Mahdi

will move beyond his current status as abstract symbol of hope to

Mulsims into that of an inspirational leader, filling believers'

hearts with magnanimity and liberating them from the grip of evil and

its handmaiden anxiety, both individ­ual and collective. Further, the

Mahdi will reify such psychic yearnings in a number of ways. In what

amounts to a rather gender-conflating metaphor, the Mahdi will, it is

said, function as the "mid-wife" for the new, more just Islamic world

order that is even now beginning its birth pains. He will formulate a

beneficial ideology that, when realized, will allow for the

establishment of a divinely based program,77 one that will elevate

Muslims, religiously and politically, worldwide.This divine agenda

not only will restore Islam to its rightful place as the world's

largest religion and master of the world but also will engender the

cre­ation of a planetary Islamic polity, called by some Mahdist

literature the dawlah Islamiyah (the Islamic state) or alternatively

the dawlah Allah (the state of God)." Whatever it is called, the

operative and overriding religiopolitical principle will be true

Qur'an-based laws and governance, replacing the extant dawlat al-

batil, "illegitimate state," a term that could refer to the current

world political system, modern Middle Eastern and Islamic regimes, or

perhaps even the State of Israel.

 

As with the Mahdi, there is a basic corpus of beliefs concerning

Jesus upon which all Mahdist writers agree. He will descend to earth;

repudiate Christianity and vindicate Islam by destroying all the

world's crosses, killing all the world's swine, and reciting the

Muslim profession of faith; cooperate with the Mahdi to overcome the

forces of evil, in particular the Dajjal; and finally, die a natural

death and be buried next to the prophet Muhammad.As with their

elaboration of the Mahdi over and above the bare bones information

contained in hadiths, however, Mahdists today add their own spin on

the return and role of Jesus. His descent, for example, is predicted

as being upon the minaret of the white mosque near Damascus

International Airport.

 

When will this happen? Most Mahdist writers think the event will

occur prior to the Mahdi s emergence, probably after "the Jews" have

rebuilt their Temple on the site of the al-Aqsa Mosque 94 which by

then will likely have been destroyed in a nuclear Harmigiddun,

or "Armageddon." (No repentant word yet from the Mahdist writer who

claimed Jesus would return in autumn 2001.) Others say that Jesus

will not return until after the Mahdi has established his global

state.

 

What will be the nature of the relationship between Jesus and the

Mahdi? One school of interpretation holds that Jesus will be the

senior partner and the Mahdi his loyal lieutenant as wazir muqarrab,

or "intimate advisor"; furthermore, this view maintains that Jesus

will be the more powerful because he alone will kill the Dajjal,

possibly in Lydda (or Lod), not in Jerusalem. Another Mahdist

apologist perspective is that, to the contrary, the Mahdi will

outrank Jesus because the latter will need the former's help to kill

the Dajjal. When they pray together afterward, Jesus will prostrate

himself in the mosque behind the Mahdi.1°' A more ecumenical view is

that the Mahdi and Jesus will be coarchitects and corulers of

the "godly state," which will represent the "kingdom of God" on

earth, the malakut Allah-a phrase that appears four times in the

Qur'an-and can be seen as the same "kingdom of God" of which Jesus

spoke in the Gospels.Thus, the Mahdist Muslim state will be the same

one for which Christians are yearning and will allow the two

historically opposed religious communities to live together

peacefully at long last, although this irenic view flies in the face

of most Muslim eschatological exegesis, which seems to mandate

conversion to Islam of all in the com­ing Mahdist state, including or

perhaps especially Christians.

 

The traditional conventional wisdom regarding Muslim disdain for the

Bible--that it ` never becomes of relevance to the legal issues

within the Islamic community, nor generally, for any theological

judgements" is not accurate, at least insofar as Madhist apologetics

is concerned. No longer do Muslims, at least of the Mahdist variety,

merely reiterate hadiths; in the past few decades, shaping them'to

fit a specfic geopolitical context has become paramount. Furthermore,

not long after 1967 we begin to see, in the eschatological Islamic

literature in general and in the Mahdist kind in particular, an

interpretive stew in which classical Muslim apocalyptic, antisemitic

[sic] conspiracy theories, and a great deal of Biblical material are

included even, by adding American evangelical glosses on the End Time

passages in Daniel, the Gospels, and Revelation.

 

Mahdists also approvingly cite the warnings in the Book of Revelation

about the great battle of Armageddon, alongside Qur'an and Hadith,

with the name either Arabicized to Harmagiddun or reentitled al-

Malhamah al-Kubra, the great battle. Some Mahdist writers see this

titanic clash as a nuclear war between two great alliances.

Interestingly enough, considering the rancor today in the Muslim

world directed at the West in general and the United States in

particular, a number of Mahdist scenarios posit the Mahdi allied with

the Christian West against a common "Eastern" enemy, at least in the

intial stages of the global battle for supremacy The Mahdi will join

forces with the Europeans and Americans, or more likely just the

Americans, against the Russians, Chinese, and probably Iranians, who

will be led by the Dajjal.14 Later, once the Mahdi and his allies

have tri­umphed, the West will betray him and attack his army, only to

be defeated, thus leading to the Mahdi s global supremacy. The

nuclear Armageddon will come either during the Mahdist and Western

victory over "the East," or later in the aftermath of the American

treachery.

 

The Mahdi s defenders also adduce a number of other references from

that corrupted document, the Bible, to support their rather tortured

exe­gesis: the Gog and Magog accounts; the parable of the workers in

the vineyard (presumably because Muslims-the community of the final

Prophet-are analogized to the last group of workers hired, who

nonethe­less receive the same reward); the day of the Lord, described

by St. Paul (which mentions the "Rapture," so excoriated by liberal

Christians and the problematic nature of which for Islam seems to

largely escape, or get ignored by, approving Mahdist writers); the

Old Testament account of Jerusalem's besiegement and a concomitant

great plague (equated with post-nuclear attack radiation poisoning);

and the famous apocalyptic warnings of Jesus.

 

The pro-Mahdist literature not only utilizes the Christian and Jewish

Scriptures but also positively cites a plethora of American

Protestant leaders-or at least their eschatological musings. These

leaders include the likes of Pat Robertson, founder of the Trinity

Broadcasting Network, one-time presi­dential candidate in 1988, and

leader of the Gospel Fundamentalists; Hal Lindsey, who began the

modern Christian eschatological craze with his book The Late Great

Planet Earth in 1970; Jerry Falwell, Baptist minister, president of

Liberty University, and founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority;

Jimmy Swaggart, the disgraced but now returned Pentecostal

televangelist; and Billy Graham, the famous evangelist and counselor

to U.S. presidents.

 

So, too, are former presidents Richard Nixon (d. 1994) and Ronald

Reagan (d. 2004), both of whom are said by Mahdists to have expected

Armageddon and Jesus' Second Coming in the very near future.

Finally, some Mahdist apologists reach far back into history for

another Western Christian validator regarding the imminent End Time:

Nostradamus (d. 1566). The famous French Catholic (who was not

attempting to predict the future but rather masked the/his otherwise

forbiddnen comments about developments in his own time) is cited to

the effect that "great terror from the sky will strike the Middle

East around the year 1999."This may, of course, mirror the great

interest in Nostradamus's apocalyptic predictions among Westerners

prior to the turn of the recent millennium.

 

Besides classical Muslim eschatological traditions and borrowings

from the Bible as refracted primarily through the aforementioned

conservative and fundamentalist Protestant commentators, the modern

Mahdist writer has an unfortunate tendency to incorporate anti-

Semitic ideas into the End Time scenarios regarding the Mahdi s

coming. Consider, for example, the reformulation of the "king of the

south" mentioned in the book of Daniel, where he is an evil ruler and

conqueror who will "desecrate the [Jewish] Temple" and "set up the

abomination that causes desolation."Today's Mahdist literature refers

to him as al-rajul al-Ashuri, "the Assyrian man," or mahdi al-

Sahyuni, "the Zionist Mahdi," and sees him not as evil but as a

garbled understanding of the coming Mahdi, wrongly portrayed as

malevolent in the Jewish Scriptures because in the run-up to the End

Time many Jews will follow the Dajjal, who will be opposed by the

Mahdi.

 

However, just how this inverted, End Time understanding of the Mahdi

is retrojected into a Jewish holy book written in the second century

BCE (if not earlier) is never explained. This example nonetheless

serves to illustrate that Mahdist writers are at least as prone to

anti-Jewish conspiracy theorizing as their non-Mahdist brethren in

the Muslim world.

 

The modern point of origin for such an Islamic worldview might well

be traced to the writings of Mahmud Abu Rayya, a disciple of Rashid

Rida, who around the time of World War II conflated the

aforementioned Muslim trepidation about alleged Jewish attempts to

undermine Islam in its early days with the modern state of Israel and

its Zionist ideology.

 

Mahdist circles may not be official or establishment, but their

denizens have drunk as deeply at this well as have the muftis of al-

Azhar, and perhaps more so. Mahdist prognosticators interpret Hadith

to mean that Jews will be among the largest contingent of the

Dajjal's followers, with his vanguard consisting of perhaps 70,000 of

them, from Isfahan (Iran). Also, theological criticism of Jews for

not believing in Jesus' return, as do Christians and Muslims, can all

too easily elide into the anti-Jewish stereotype so beloved of some

Islamists. Jews in Iran, particularly, are seen as a nefarious force

allied with Christians and Communists to undermine Islam-and this

even after the establishment of the Islamic Republic there.Mustafa

Kemal Atatürk, the Ottoman general who almost single-handedly created

the modern state of Turkey, is portrayed in this literature as the

main reason for the fall of the Ottoman caliphate.

 

He is said to have been dedicated to injuring Islam in this way by

virtue of his allegedly being a Dönme, a descendant of those Jews who

followed the seventeenthcentury Jewish leader Sabbatai Sevi from

Jewish messianism into Islam.The Zionists are said to be helping

undermine Islam not just by occupying Palestinian land but by aiding

and abetting the Baha'i heresy, since the worldwide headquarters of

Baha'ism is in Israel. In the Great Battle that finally decides

humanity's political fate and brings the Mahdi to planetary power,

his pious Muslim armies will triumph over those of the Americans,

Turks, and Israelis.So, Judaism, through its political incarnation of

Zionism, is seen as trying to hinder or oppose the Mahdi, with

predictable results (or so the Mahdists hope).

 

The Dajjal whom so many Jews will allegedly follow will, say modern

Madhists, come from "the East"-Iran, Russia, perhaps one of the

former Soviet republics like Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan-or

alternatively, from the Arabian Peninsula. He will escape or be freed

from some form of angelic incarceration at the end of a time of great

famine and drought and after either the conquest of "Constantinople"-

modern Istanbul-or after Armageddon. The Dajjal will be the

fountainhead of unbelief, error, and strife, performing miracles and

eventually claiming divinity for himself. Besides Jews, his devotees

will number devils, Christians, batinis ("esotericists," a term

historically used to refer to Isma'ili Shï ites) and women. He will

roam the earth for 40 days or 40 years but, despite his powers, be

prohibited by God from entering four sanctuaries of the faithful:

Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Mt. Sinai. Jesus, perhaps assisted by

the Mahdi, will finally kill him.

 

It is in the view of the Dajjal that the anti-Shï i and anti-Iranian

predilec­tions of some Sunni Mahdists come to the fore. One scenario,

then, postulates that Iranian President Muhammad Khatami might very

well be the Dajjal, since the Shï i clerical hierarchy of sayyid,

hujatollah, and ayatollah can easily be adapted to a claim of

divinity (one step above ayatollah, pre­sumably), which the Dajjal

will make. In this scenario Khatami will reveal his Dajjalate at an

Islamic conference in Tehran in the not-too distant future, after

which he will lead the Shïa Iranians in a nuclear attack on Bahrain

and the eastern Gulf emirates, commencing the End Time events.This

would certainly seem to be, among other things, a good Sunni Mahdist

argument supporting the U.S. nonproliferation stance toward the

Islamic Republic.

 

The other, lesser eschatological figures are given much shorter

shrift by Mahdist writers, no doubt because they are mere ancillaries

to the big three of the Mahdi, Jesus, and the Dajjal. The Dabbah is

acknowledged, and Mahdists largely follow the hadith accounts of it:

emerging from somewhere in the Arabian desert the same day that the

sun rises in the West, it will travel to Mecca and then proceed to

roam the earth; and like the Dajjal, it will have k-f-r, the Arabic

consonantal root for "unbeliever," inscribed on its forehead.

 

As for Yajuj and Majuj, there are a few more creative pro-Mahdist

glosses applied than with the Dabbah. These groups are said, for

example, to be post-Deluge descendents of Japheth, son of Noah. As

time passed, the Japhethites somehow transmogrified into those hordes

that Alexander the Great penned up, pending the Last Days. Modern

Mahdist writers tend to identify these hordes as the modern Russians

or Chinese that will, sometime after Jesus slays the Dajjal, stream

forth across Eurasia until God, at Jesus' request, destroys them.

 

Finally, the Sufyani is warned about by some Mahdists in that he will

take over the Middle East prior to the Mahdi's coming; he will

probably come from Jordan. It is sometimes speculated that he will

have lieutenants identified as al-Abga, "the speckled/spotted," and

al-Ashab, "the reddish"; the former was supposed to have been Yassir

Arafat (d. 2004) while the latter will be an as-yet undertermined

Jordanian.

 

Finally, a book entitled "Al Mahdi, Jesus and Moshaikh [the Anti-

Christ]," allegedly by the "late Grand Muhaddathi of Morocco, Shaykh

Abdullah ben Sadek, Ph.D. (d. 1993), states that prophet Jesus rather

than the Mahdi will "receive the caliphate," and it explicitly claims

that Israel was reestablished by Allah in order to provide a base of

operations for the Dajjal prior to his defeat.

[Guest guest]

Jesus lived in India

http://a4.nu/christian/jesus-christ/lived_in_india.htm