The life of this world is a transient thing in which good and bad, beauty and ugliness appear, by their actions in which human beings are tested, and in which believers and non-believers are distinguished from one another. Almighty Allah, Who has created all beings and this testing, has also created an enemy in the form of a denier and wrong-doer to confront believers as part of the test. This denier, who confronted prophets, messengers and believers throughout the history, at a time when the hadiths of the Prophet (saas) tell us the Prophet ‘Isa (as) is expected to return to Earth, in the End Times in other words, will be the “Dajjal,” or the Antichrist.
Dajjal is an Arabic word, derived from the root “dajl.” Dictionaries define Dajjal as “liar, fraud, a seditious and damned person who confuse the minds, hearts, good and bad, the right and the wrong, who hides the real face of something by gilding it, who wanders everywhere.”
The hadiths refer to the Dajjal as the greatest negative force to appear in the end of times. The Dajjal, who will attempt to rule the system of satan by means on enmity towards the messenger of Allah in the End Times when extraordinary events take place, is perhaps one of the worst deniers of all time. Our Prophet (saas) describes the dimension of the corruption of the Dajjal as follows:
“There would be no creation (creating more trouble) than the Dajjal right from the creation of Adam to the Last Hour."[i]
It is narrated in traditions that the Dajjal is a deceiver who portrays truth as falsity and falsity as truth, and good as bad and bad as good. As we are told in the hadith "He will also have Paradise and Hell with him. Though his Paradise will appear as Paradise, in reality it will be Hell, and likewise, though his Hell will appear like Hell, in reality it will be Paradise.”[ii], everything he calls beautiful is actually an evil that will inflict disaster on humanity. And the values he depicts as evil are actually beneficial and in the interests of humanity. Yet since some people do not look at events in the light of the moral values of the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet (saas), they will be misled by the things to which the Dajjal invites them and will follow him, while heedlessly turning their backs on the path of Allah, which they should actually follow. They will see what a grave error that is thanks to the climate of oppression the Dajjal will establish. It is for these reasons that our Prophet (saas) has warned mankind and told people to act in the knowledge that what the Dajjal portrays as evil is in fact good:
“The Dajjal will appear. And there will be along with him water and fire. What the people will see as water will be burning fire. And what will appear as fire will be water. Any one of you who will see that should plunge in that which he sees as fire for it will be sweet, pure water.”[iii]
[i] Muslim, Fitan: 126
[ii] Sahih Muslim
[iii] Sahih Muslim
