- Dr. Shabir welcome
to Let the Quran Speak. - My pleasure, Safiyyah. - The apocalypse. This is a term that's used
in all sorts of movies and in popular media, people love thinking about
the end of the world, the end of time, what will come. And we know that in
world religions as well, there's a lot of reference
to that in Christianity, in Islam and Judaism in
many other religions. So doc Shabir, I thought it would
be interesting to
compare the Christian and Muslim view
of the apocalypse. So maybe you could
tell us a little bit about what the
Christian view is. - Yeah the Christian
view largely is based on what is referred to as
the book of revelation, the last book of the Bible. And it's called the revelation because it begins
with the writer, presumably John saying that this is a revelation of Jesus Christ. So it's a message almost
like Muslims understand that the prophet Muhammad
peace be upon them, gets a revelation from God. He gets a message from God
and tells us about things that will happen in the future. So this is a book of revelation, that this book is also
called apocalypse. Apocalypse does not
necessarily mean destruction, it means also revelation. - I was surprised to see that when I did some
research into it, it could mean like
an unveiling or. - Exactly, but because
the book of revelation as speaks so much
about the destruction of the world eventually, or rather the, well, yes, the destruction of the world and the institution
of a new earth and new heavens
and the new earth. And so then that
the term apocalyptic tends to mean in our
popular parlance, destruction or something is
of apocalyptic proportions, which means,
gigantic proportions because the wrath of God is
poured out in massive portions in the book of revelation. So basically the
book of revelation is a book of 22 chapters. It starts out with this
idea that set revelation from Jesus, to John the apostle or John the presbytery
of the elder. And then it has sent letters
to the various churches that Jesus presumably is
sending out to the churches. Messages of warning to them because they have deviated
from the right path. There are sins are
outlined one after another, and then comes all of
this doom and gloom that God is gonna pour out
his wrath on the world. And then eventually the
institution of the new heavens and the new earth
towards the end. So some Christians see this
as a nice closure to the Bible because the book of Genesis
had this ideal world, the garden of Eden. And then the Bible is ending
with the ideal of the world to come in the future. And now if the, at one point it speaks of the
Christians being raptured up out from the world and then
comes a period of tribulation. So the Christians, good
Christians would not witness that period of tribulation. And it also speaks
about Jesus coming back. And there are two
views regarding this, whether Jesus would
come back prior to the period of peace, which would last for
a thousand years, or Jesus would return
after the period of peace, which would last for
the thousand years. In the latter case, it means that Christians
would have this responsibility to work towards and to
establish this period of peace for a thousand years. So two different views can
have different implications for a Christian living. On the first view that
Jesus will come back and he will inaugurate
the period of peace that could mean, or it could lead to a
pessimistic sort of assessment of the world thinking that
the world is so corrupt, nothing can fix it except
the coming back of Jesus. So there are different
ways of interpreting the book of revelation. And of course, because some of the imagery is
his soul, in Christian terms, some Christians say so bizarre
that they prefer to interpret it in a metaphorical sense. They say it cannot
be taken literally, it could not mean that now. - Dr. Shabir is how important
is the concept of apocalypse to Christian thought then? - Well, because it's
part of the Bible, It has its importance. And it's not only because of
the book of revelation alone because the book of
revelation actually, so happens to be the last
book that was approved to be part of the Christian
Canon of new Testament writings. The Syriac churches accepted
it only in the fifth century, which means hundreds
of years after Jesus. But there are other
passages as well, which have an
apocalyptic tone to it. So there are preachings
of Jesus in the gospels speaking about times of
tribulations and so on. And the synoptic gospels in
particular, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Mark
chapter 13 especially. And corresponding passages in the other two
synoptic gospels. So with that in mind, the apocalyptic scenarios which
are already in the gospels, just play out to a
greater extent in the
book of revelation. So even if some
Christians prefer not to read the
book of revelation, in fact, on my way
to the recording, I was listening to
a Christian speaking about the book of revelation
and telling us in a nutshell, what the contents are. And he said that some
Christians are afraid to read the book of revelation. So in any case, whatever the response to the
book of revelation, the preachings of Jesus already
has this kind of apocalyptic overtone in the gospels. And so that is very
much a part of Christian thinking about what will
happen in the future. - What about Islam Dr. Shabir, Islam has its own
apocalyptic story, how does that compare
to Christianity? - Yeah, so in the
Islamic tradition, we have some
descriptions of end times and many of these
descriptions are very similar to what we know about
from the Christian and other apocalyptic writings, partly because the
Muslims borrowed themes and topics and so on
from other communities. And some of these
were attributed back to the prophet
peace be upon him. So we have in Islamic tradition, dimension of the
Dajjal, the antichrist, who is also mentioned in
the book of revelation. But there are more
elaborate descriptions in Islamic tradition
that Dajjal will be, it seems like a human being,
but descriptions vary. But in any case, he said to have been
blinded in the right eye and he will have the word, the word kufr means disbelief, spelled with three letters
of the Arabic alphabet, kaf, faa, and this would
be written on his forehead. And Muslims would recognize
it immediately to know that this is really
the antichrist, he's called in Arabic, Al-Masih
ad-Dajjal, the false Christ using the same term Al-Masih, which means the
Christ or the Messiah, but not with the appendage
that he's the false one. It is known from Islamic
tradition that Jesus will descend at a certain time after the antichrist has already been wreaking havoc on earth. Most all in the
Islamic tradition not that he's destroying
things so much, but that he's turning
believers astray by getting believers
to worship him as opposed to worshiping God. But then Jesus will descend
on the wings of two angels on a mosque in Damascus
and or yes, in Damascus. And he will then go out
and find the anti-Christ at a place near what
is Tel Aviv today at a place called Lod. And he will thrust a spear
into this anti-Christ body who in the meantime
had begun to melt just by seeing Jesus
and the spear would be the final undoing of him. And then Jesus usher
in a period of peace, which has said in
Islamic tradition to be lasting for seven
years after which eventually there will be other
signs and tribulations. So that if we think
about the equivalent of the Christian rapture, it is mentioned in Islamic
tradition that there will be a breeze coming through the
land that will take up the souls of the believers. So that the worst that is
to come will be experienced by those who remain after
the believers are taken away. I should add that these detailed
scenarios of the end times, are not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran has some
brief mentions about things being
destroyed, the earth and this whole system
being destroyed and God, having his
own judgment of people. - The Quran speaks about
the day of judgment... - Exactly, yeah that is
repeated in the Quran. It's one of the main articles of faith of the Muslim doctrine
that we believe in God. And we believe in the last day. - Yeah and that everything
will be destroyed. And then the day of
judgment will come and human beings will
be kind of accountable for their sins, right? And then there'll
be some sort of having a paradise
or hell or whatever there is at the end, right? - Yeah, yes. In the Bible, in
the new Testament, in particular, the judgment
is assigned to Jesus and the acts of the
apostles Paul declares that, God has appointed one
man to judge the world. And in the Quran, the
judgment is to God alone. God is the Supreme judge
and he will judge us on the day of judgment that's why we say,
Maliki yawmi alddeeni, he's the owner of
the day of judgment. - Thank you for your
time, Dr Shabir. - Your welcome.
