FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Antichrist - Dajjal

Rant Number 504       6 September 2012

Ouch! A sudden, sharp exclamation of physical pain. An hour ago the priest felt it. I had reached out for a book on the floorboard, by my feet. Ouch! A tiny splinter of wood wedged itself under my left hand’s index fingernail. No, I am not a stoic! Boy, something so small causing such a wave of pain, amazing. I laboured to remove it. More pain and some bleeding, drawn out at last. What a relief! Yet, I blame Dajjal.

Dajjal...who is he? A dreaded, most unpleasant figure. An Islamic Antichrist. He does not appear directly in the Qur’an but he is mentioned in the ahadith. Collections of reports, sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad. There are six canonical such collections, as well as innumerable spurious ones floating around. Two major, authentic ones are by a pair of pious scholars, called Bukhari and Muslim. On their authority, you read the Prophet’s true utterances about Dajjal.

Dajjal is a liar, a deceiver, an impostor. However, he is no master of disguise as he bears the ugly word kafir, unbeliever, between his two eyes, for all to see and shudder at. One-eyed, Dajjal’s blind eye protrudes out of the socket. Still, he has a mountain of food and drink to entice gluttonous suckers into following him. He works miracles but he does not convince... He and his hordes will one day besiege the holy city of Medina but, as angels will guard its seven gates, he will be repelled: al-hamdulillah!

How does Dajjal relate to my pain? Well, I was reading about the bastard. Another book with more info about him was lying on the smooth (I thought) floorboards... ‘Dajjal’, I was thinking at the very moment - the splinter penetrated my flesh: ‘Ouch!’ That was it.

Jung, as almost everybody knows, advanced his notion of synchronicity. Two events happen, apparently utterly, non-causedly related. You think of a butterfly and, lo and behold, a butterfly flies into your room. There was a reason why you thought of a butterfly at that moment and a reason, or cause, why that butterfly was propelled into your chamber but the two things are not causally connected. Not at all.

Similarly, there was a reason why I was thinking of Dajjal and indeed a reason why the wood splinter reached my flesh – and also an obvious explanation why it got stuck under my fingernail but the two have nothing to do with each other. They are not causally related. Simply a coincidence.

No, Jung argues. Something exists, an a-causal law or principle at work behind or beyond or inside the universe. That non-causal cause sometimes manifests itself in your life. Such as in the example of the butterfly. Or, perhaps, in the case of Dajjal. There is no question of scientific proof, of course. You could not experiment or test or repeat the experience, as scientific method demands. And yet, when the coincidence is sufficiently extreme...

The difference is that a butterfly is a harmless, natural creature. Dajjal is not. Dajjal is powerful. And he is evil. In Islam he is one of the Signs of the Hour, meaning the extraordinary, apocalyptic phenomena at the end of time that usher in Doomsday. It seems to me not at all implausible that such a demonic Dajjal might have wished to give the priest a little but effective demonstration of his malevolence and his power.

Huh! You dare scribble about me, eh? Maybe you think Dajjal does not exist, that the whole thing is a legend, a fantasy. Well, here it is for you. Just a small, a miniscule lesson and yet it will make cry out ‘ouch!’ So be very careful what you write about me, OK? Don’t forget who I could do...’ Say what you like, I feel the all-too- existent Dajjal delivered his nasty lesson effectively.

If Dajjal is so demonically important, however, why doesn’t the Qur’an mention him? Well, you could ask the same question about the Mahdi, a fine positive figure for Muslims. The Qur’an is silent about him and yet the faithful believe in him. He certainly is in the ahadith, although not in our couple, Bukhari and Muslim.

Actually, my friend Professor Oliver Leaman suggests the Qur’an does refer to Dajjal, in surah 6: 158, but that seems a bit speculative. I must leave it the learned ‘ulama to settle it.

Nonetheless the Qur’an does speak about the Hour, the time of the awful Day of Judgment. Interestingly, Jesus is one of the portents announcing that great Day. An intriguing hadith in Bukhari tells of a dreamer dreaming of Jesus. He describes him physically: ‘A reddish-white-skinned man, with lank hair, water dropping from his head.’ Well, a Jew from Galilee, where the population was pretty racially mixed, Jesus may well have had European features, why not? And might not the wet hair be a reference to his title, his being ‘Masih’, his head anointed with holy unguent? Fascinating!

The same dreamer mentions an ugly hulk nearby. Curly headed (Gaddafi lookalike, perhaps?), huge, ginger complexion, deformed blind eye. Looks familiar? It is Dajjal, naturally. He is also called Masih but only in the sense that he is a false, lying Messiah. Other narrations have Jesus slays Dajjal. Shocking? We Christians do not think of Jesus as killing anyone. Maybe we should remember II Thessalonians, in which Christ slays the Antichrist (the Man of Lawlessness) ‘by the breath of his mouth and destroy(s) him with the brightness of his coming’ (2:8). Surely it serves that nasty Beast right?

Other traditions also stress the spiritual, moral and natural degradations preceding the Last Days. It will be so awful that someone walking by a grave will wish himself to be in the dead man’s place. Apocalyptic hyperbole, perhaps, but, I just wonder...Is the Hour approaching?

So, Dajjal, the false Messiah. Did he really mean to impart to me a wee but dolorous reminder of his presence? Or is it simply superstition? A German line springs to mind:Nicht Glaube, aber Aberglaube. ‘Not superstition but belief!’

©Revd Frank Julian Gelli